Focus on China

Yingli, unlike its rivals, is focusing heavily on China as it bets on volume growth in what is projected to be the largest solar market in the world this year.

The company, which was the world's largest solar panel supplier last year, said China is expected to account for 47 percent of shipments in the current quarter, up from 38 percent in the third quarter.

Yingli said it is building a pipeline of 400 megawatt (MW) to 500MW worth of projects -- most of which is in China, where developers are speeding up the construction of solar plants ahead of an expected change in the country's feed-in-tariffs.

Yingli said it had already completed 80 MW worth of projects in China out of the targeted 120 MW-130 MW for this year.

Selling prices in China, however, are weaker than in high-margin markets such as Japan and companies are also struggling with delayed payments.

Analyst Krop said Yingli's account receivables was a concern, indicating that some customers were struggling to make payments on time.

The company's accounts receivables were $811 million as of Sept.30, compared with $722.6 as of June 30.

Higher margins, shipments

Yingli said it expects gross margin to improve to 14-16 percent in the fourth quarter. Margin rose to 13.7 percent in the third quarter, from negative 22.7 percent a year earlier.

It expects fourth-quarter panel shipments to rise in the mid- to high-single digit percentage range from the third quarter.

Yingli plans to expand its internal manufacturing capacity to 3 gigawatt (GW) and have total capacity of 4 GW in 2014, helped by access to the plants of other companies, an executive said on a conference call.

Yingli has about 2.45 GW of manufacturing capacity now.

Yingli's third-quarter revenue rose nearly 68 percent to $596.3 million, beating analysts' estimates of $563.1 million, according to Thomson Reuters.

Net loss fell to $38.5 million, or 25 cents per American Depositary Share (ADS), from $161.9 million, or 98 cents per ADS, a year earlier.

Hanwha SolarOne, on the other hand, said its loss widened to $75.2 million, or 89 cents per ADS, in the third quarter, from $51.3 million, or 61 cents per ADS.

Hanwha SolarOne's US-listed shares were down 12 percent at $4.45 in mid-day trading on the Nasdaq. Yingli's shares were down 9 percent at $6.32 on the New York Stock Exchange.

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