SMA Solar Technology achieves most successful quarter in company history.

SMA Solar Technology published its third-quarter results, which showed an increase in profit, to make this past nine-month period, January to September 2009, the company’s most successful quarter to date. The company’s sales and earnings forecast for the whole of 2009 has risen from €850 to €900 million and the EBIT margin has changed from 23% to 25%. More than half of the sales revenues for 2009 were produced in this quarter alone.

This third quarter showed an increase in sales from €226.7 million to €312.4 million. Sales revenues in the first nine months increased around 8% to €559.5 million from last year’s €519.3 million. The inverter outputs sold went from 0.2GW in Q1 to 1.2GW in Q3, and SMA was able to lower the inverter price to 0.25 Euros per watt in this quarter as well.

SMA’s global sales summed up to €215.7 million, which the company lends to strong foreign markets in the Benelux countries, North America, France, Italy and Australia. Domestic demand did show the global numbers to have a dip from Q3 of last year, with the export ratio being 37.7% this year compared to last year’s 41.8%.

An operating profit of €85.9 million was recorded with an EBIT margin of 27.5%. Between January and September of this year, SMA produced an EBIT of €120.8 million, down from last year’s €131.8 million. The SMA Group calculated that it has increased its market share approximately 45% to 50% during this year. The

group net income, which fell below last year’s reported number, came in at €86 million and the earnings per share were €2.48.

At the end of September, the company recorded the networking capital ratio at 19.2% and outside the target range of 16% to 18%. The improvement in inventories and receivables is a reflection of SMA’s high order volume at the time. Liquid funds and securities were posted as €253.5 million at the end of Septemb