UPDATE: Yingli Green Posts Narrower Q1 Loss

Yingli Green Energy Holding Company

reported a loss in the first quarter. Yingli Green posted a quarterly loss of $55 million, or 341.76 million yuan, versus a year-ago loss of 611.78 million yuan. Its adjusted earnings came in at $0.35 per share, or 2.18 yuan, versus a year-ago loss of 3.91 yuan. Its operating loss came in at RMB 129.0 million (US$20.7 million). Total PV module shipments fell 32.9% to 630.8 MW in the quarter. Its revenue came in at RMB 2,686.8 million (US$432.2 million), versus RMB 3,711.1 million. Overall gross margin widened to 15.7% in the quarter versus 12.2%. The company's press release offered the following comment from Mr. Liansheng Miao, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Yingli Green Energy: "I'm pleased with the improvement in our gross margin in the first quarter of 2014, which is attributable to the slight increase in average selling price of PV modules and our on-going efforts on cost reduction, and I have confidence in our ability to drive additional improvement moving forward." Interest expense fell to RMB 252.0 million (US$40.5 million) from RMB 256.5 million, while foreign currency exchange loss came in at RMB 13.8 million (US$2.2 million) versus foreign currency exchange gain of RMB 12.3 million. Yingli Green shares gained 4.26% to $3.67 in pre-market trading.