FRANKFURT (Reuters) - SolarWorld, Germany"s largest solar company by revenue, expects 2010 sales to rise year-on-year, as the company continues weather the impact of an industry crisis that has led peers to pile up massive losses.
"We plan to continuously exceed the previous year"s revenue level of 1 billion euros ($1.35 billion) in 2010," the company said on Thursday, giving its first outlook for the current year at a time when uncertainty has gripped most industry players.
This is mainly due to potential cuts for solar power incentives in Germany, the world"s largest market for solar products.
Q-Cells, the world"s No.4 solar cell maker, earlier this week said that it was unable to give an outlook for the financial year, pointing to the market situation in Europe"s largest economy.
The German government plans to cut state-mandated incentives, called feed-tariffs -- for rooftop solar power by 16 percent from July 1 and eliminate support for converted farmland, parliamentary sources told Reuters.
SolarWorld, whose shares were indicated 1.6 percent lower, said 2009 earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) came in at 151.8 million euros, below the 167 million euros that were expected by analysts according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Incentive cuts in Germany mean the second blow to the sector within two years, as it has already suffered massively under a price slump for solar components caused by overcapacities, causing cell and module makers such as Q-Cells and Solon to pile up record losses.
SolarWorld, however, has so far been able to cope much better with the crisis since the wafer-to-module producer is active in many parts of the solar value chain, a key feature to offseting pricing pressure in one area.
(Reporting by Christoph Steitz)
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