‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member GCL System Integrated Technology (GCL-SI) has recently reported a major reduction in both revenue and profits in the third quarter of 2017, after posting record quarterly revenue in the prior quarter.

Primarily dependent on China’s domestic PV market, GCL-SI benefited from the country installed new solar capacity of 24.40GW in the first half of 2017, resulting in record revenue in the second quarter. At the end of the third quarter, China installs reached a cumulative 42GW.

However, with new capacity in the first half of the year dominated by utility-scale business, a key market for the company, sales declined as the China market shifted to ‘Top Runner’ and ‘Poverty Alleviation’ programs in the second-half of 2017.

GCL-SI had previously reported that overseas market sales in the first half of 2017 reached RMB 923 million (US$140 million), accounting for 14.46% of total sales, an increase of 64.54% over the same period of last year. 

GCL-SI reported third quarter revenue (operating income) of over RMB 3.03 billion (US$456.8 million), up 13.37% from the prior year period but down around 25% from the second quarter of 2017. 

Revenue for the first nine months of 2017 reached over RMB 9.4 billion (US$1.42 billion), compared to around US$1.36 billion in the prior year period. 

Net profit in the third quarter of 2017 was around US$1.9 million. Operating profit decreased 84.20% over the same period of last year, mainly due to the decrease of gross profit and increase of expenses, according to the company. Net cash flow from operating activities in the reporting quarter increased by 107.78% compared with the prior year period, which was said to be due to an increase in revenue collection.

The company is moving to increase overseas sales having established 600MW of solar cell capacity in Vietnam and executing on ramping in-house capacity in China to over 2GW by the end of 2017. 

GCL-SI supports sister company GCL New Energy in its downstream project business with module supply, which reported built and grid-connect a total of around 1,600MW of PV projects in the first half of 2017.GCL New Energy has yet to release third quarter results.