On the back of the dumping of "enormous" amounts of polysilicon into China, GCL-Poly was "forced" to decrease shipments and instead focus on ramping up production. Despite the tough conditions, the company has reported relatively stable 1H earnings.

According to GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Limited, major polysilicon producers in the U.S., Germany and Korea are said to have been taking advantage of China’s processing trade policy to dump "enormous" volumes of polysilicon in China, which has resulted in pushing polysilicon prices down, thus "causing huge losses across global polysilicon industry."

It reports that polysilicon ASPs fell from HK$171.0 (US$22.1)/kg in 1H 2014, to HK$133.4 (US$17.2)/kg, while ASPs for wafers dropped to HK$1.51 (US$0.195)/W in 1H 2015, from HK$1.75 (US$0.225)/W.

As a consequence, GCL-Poly says it was "forced" to decrease the shipment of polysilicon products and instead ramp up production and sales "to meet the significantly increased demand in raw materials from domestic PV customers."

In the first half of this year, polysilicon production ran at full capacity, increasing 13.7% on 1H 2014, to 36,768 MT. Annual wafer production capacity also increased to 14 GW and, in the first half of this year, production rose 17.5% from 6,042 MW in 2014 to 7,102 MW.

Overall, wafers continue to contribute strongly to GCL’s Solar Material’s business, accounting for 87% of the HK 11.4 billion revenues reaped in 1H 2015 (down from HK 12 billion in 1H 2014). Total profit for this segment totaled HK 992 million, down from HK 1.1 billion last year.

The Solar Farm business recorded a big loss of HK 74.6 million, down significantly on the HK 59 million profit seen in 1H 2014. Revenues, however, increased from HK 327 million, to HK 384 million.

Its new energy business, GCL New Energy, which also deals with solar farms, recorded a huge jump in both revenues and profit, from HK 270 million and HK -2.2 million, respectively, in 1H 2014, to HK 1.1 billion and HK 90 million. Its aggregate installed capacity and grid-connected capacity were 772.5MW and 645.3 MW respectively, as of June 30. It has a total pipeline of 776 MW of solar farms either under development or construction.

Overall, the GCL group saw revenues increasing to HK 17.9 billion, up slightly from HK 17.2 billion, while gross profit went from HK 3.7 billion to HK 3.9 billion. Net profit sank slightly, however, from HK 1 billion to HK 998 million.