Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (STP)
Q3 2009 Earnings Call Transcript
November 19, 2009 8:00 a.m. ET

Executives

Rory Macpherson - Director of Investor Relations
Dr. Zhengrong Shi - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Steven Chan - Chief Strategy Officer and President of Global Sales and Marketing
Dr. Stuart Wenham - Chief Technology Officer
Amy Yi Zhang - Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

Burt Chao - Simmons & Company
Ming Shu - Piper Jaffray
Satya Kumar - Credit Suisse
Sanjay Shrestha - Lazard Capital Markets
Lu Yeung - Merrill Lynch
Sunil Gupta - Morgan Stanley
Rob Stone - Cowen & Company
Nitin Kumar - Nomura, Singapore
Dan Ries - Collins Stewart
Pranab Sarmah - Daiwa Securities
Kelly Dougherty - Macquarie
Mehdi Hosseini - FBR
Sam Dubinsky - Oppenheimer
Emily Liu - Arete Research
Paul Leming - Soleil Securities
Gordon Johnson - Hapoalim Securities

Presentation

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the third quarter 2009 Suntech Power earnings conference call. My name is Eric, I''ll be your audio coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will facilitate the question-and-answer session at the end of the presentation. If at any time during the call you require audio assistance press star followed by zero and a coordinator will be there to assist you. As a reminder, the conference is being recorded for replay purposes.

I would now like to turn your presentation over to Mr. Rory Macpherson, Director, Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Rory Macpherson

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Suntech''s third quarter 2009 earnings conference call. My name is Rory Macpherson, Suntech''s Director of Investor Relations. From Suntech we''ll have Dr. Zhengrong Shi, Suntech''s Chairman and CEO, Steven Chan, Chief Strategy Officer and President of Global Sales and Marketing, Dr. Stuart Wenham, Suntech''s Chief Technology Officer; Amy Yi Zhang, our Chief Financial Officer. Also Ian Tu, our Senior Financial Analyst will participate in the Q&A following Dr. Shi''s closing remarks.

Before we continue, during this conference call we will make certain forward-looking statements in an effort to assist you in understanding the company and its results. The forward-looking statements will be made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, Suntech''s future results may be materially different from the views expressed today. A number of potential risks and uncertainties are outlined in our earnings release issued today and our SEC filings. Suntech does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable law.

To enhance our presentation of information and data during this conference call, we have provided a set of PowerPoint slides which we will refer to as management delivers their prepared remarks. This presentation is posted on the main page of the Investor Center of our website.

As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and a web-cast replay will also be available on the Investor Relations section of Suntech''s website after this call. Please make note that all figures mentioned during the conference call are in U.S. dollars.

I will now turn the call over to Suntech''s Chairman and CEO, Dr. Zhengrong Shi.

Dr. Zhengrong Shi

Hello, and I thank you for joining us today. Please turn to slide three of the third quarter presentation. We are very pleased to announce record shipments and a strong bottom line growth in the third quarter of 2009. Our revenue increased 47% quarter-over-quarter to $473.1 million on the back of record shipment growth of 67%.

Our net income also roughly tripled from $10 million in the second quarter to close to $30 million in the third quarter. This is an excellent performance and it demonstrates our ability to leverage the largest crystalline silicon solar production base to drive both revenue and earnings growth.

Today, I will outline the reasons for the strong demand that we have seen, give you some guidance on industry change and discuss our regional sales efforts. The third quarter is generally a very strong quarter, as customers rush to install systems before end of year subsidy adjustments.

This year the seasonal rush was exacerbated by rapid price declines and the subsequent improvement in project returns, the ongoing improvement of the global project financing environment and the latent demand due to unseasonably low installations in the first half of 2009.