Suntech Says It Has Sold 75% of Forecast Shipments for 2007

Suntech Power Holdings Co., China's largest solar panel maker by market value, said it has sold more than 75 percent of the solar cells it expected to ship this year and will raise capacity almost four-fold over the next four years.

The company has contracts for sales of between 220-megawatts and 240-megawatts of its expected 280-megawatts of shipments this year, with as much as 50 megawatts of the contract sales coming from the U.S, Steven Chan, vice president of business development said at a conference in Taipei.

Suntech also said it will increase its annual capacity to 1,000 megawatts by 2010, from the 150 megawatts it shipped last year, as the Wuxi, China-based company taps into rising demand for alternative energy. Silicon, which account for 75 percent of costs of goods sold, will become cheaper as it buys more of the raw material on contract from suppliers, Chan said.

Eighty-five percent of Suntech's sales last year were from its main markets of Germany, Spain, the U.S. and China, Chan said.

source:www.bloomberg.com