Trina Solar beats by $0.14, beats on revs

Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.74 per share, $0.14 better than the First Call consensus of $0.60; revenues rose 44.8% year/year to $313.3 mln vs the $283.5 mln consensus. For the first quarter of 2010, the co expects to ship between 180 MW to 190 MW of PV modules. The co believes gross margin for the first quarter will likely be between 26% and 28%. For the full year of 2010, the co expects total PV module shipments between 750 MW to 800 MW, representing an increase of 88% to 100% from 2009. Q4 Gross margin was 32.6%, above the co's guidance of 25% to 27%, compared to 28.5% sequentially and 9.6% year-over-year. The YoY increase in gross margin was primarily due to the co's favorable reduction of its silicon purchase price and non-silicon manufacturing costs relative to module ASP decline. The co continued its focused efforts to reduce its manufacturing cost per watt through ongoing efficiency gains linked to its lean manufacturing initiatives and improved supply chain mgmt. The co achieved additional yield enhancements in our manufacturing techniques involving proprietary processes for our ingot, wafer, cell and module manufacturing, and higher cell conversion efficiencies. Net margin was 15.7% in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to 16.1% in 3Q09 and negative 0.3% in 4Q08. Q4 Total shipments were 163.7 MW, compared to the co's previous guidance of 145 MW to 165 MW, versus 122.6 MW in 3Q09 and 57.6 MW in 4Q08. The sequential increase in total shipments was primarily due to increased demand in European markets, due, in part, to improved PV system purchase financing conditions in major European markets and increased year-end demand to install new PV systems ahead of annual feed-in tariff adjustments in January in established PV markets including Germany and Italy.