About three weeks ago, I passed along a post to you from NotableCalls.com which highlighted the Oppenheimer call for a strong 3rd quarter.  Oppenheimer was giving the green light on CSIQ saying to expect a big 3rd quarter.  But first things first!  How about that 2nd quarter!

The company smashed EPS estimates by swinging to a profit in the quarter of .49/share vs the analyst estimate of a .09/loss.  Remind me again why these analysts get paid?  Revenues were better than expected as well at $114.2 million vs the consensus of $94 million.  Granted, those numbers are still down significantly from last year’s quarter, but a big swing in the positive direction for sure. 

The company is raising the FY09 shipment guidance from 200 – 220 to 260 – 270MW and increasingly optimistic about future quarters:

Dr. Shawn Qu, CEO said: “We believe that the very large growth in customer orders in Q309 over Q209 demonstrates our ability to gain market share. These share gains are the result of our competitive pricing, high product quality and the bankability of our products. Although the market remains uncertain and the solar project financing remains challenging, we think that we will carry this momentum forward into Q4 as we continue to expand our business in diversified geographies, including Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain, Korea and US. We also expect to see sales contributions from Japan, China and Canada in the near future.”

More highlights:

– Europe continues to be largest market and sales increased 86% in the past 3 months
– Sales growth also soared in Asia (188%) and the US (500%) over the previous quarter
– reached 18.5% efficiency on its monocrystalline cells in pilot production while the avg was 17.2% in the quarter
– multicrystalline cell efficiency averaged 16.1% during the quarter
– lower cost proprietary e-Modules averaging 15% efficiency
– reduced processing cost to $.60/watt from .71/watt last quarter

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