Canadian Solar's Chinese Inroads

Canadian Solar Inc. (CSIQ - Analyst Report) yesterday announced that is has obtained rights to design, install, operate and maintain a 500MW solar power plant system in Baotou, Inner Mongolia -- an autonomous region in the northern part of the People's Republic of China. Canadian Solar got a letter of intent from the Administration Committee of Baotou National Rare Earth Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone.

Canadian Solar is one of the largest solar module producers in the world, with manufacturing based in China. However, the Canadian company generates the majority of its revenues from the European market (58.6% of revenues in Q2’09), while Asia generated only 27.2% over the same period. However, its European topline year-over-year has shrunk by almost 64.5%. To bridge the gap, the company has been actively cultivating Asian markets such as China and Japan.

However, the sleeping dragon hasn’t been tapped properly by the company, either. China is aiming for increasing its installed solar power capacity to 2GW by 2011 from 140MW capacity at the end of fiscal 2008. And the road ahead isn’t smooth, as CSIQ has to compete with a large number of competitors for the Chinese business. Some competitors included in our coverage are Suntech Power Holdings Company Ltd (STP - Snapshot Report), and ReneSola Ltd (SOL - Analyst Report). We maintain our short-term Outperform rating on the shares.