JinkoSolar Holding Co. Ltd. (NYSE: JKS) reported fourth-quarter and full-year 2013 results before markets opened Monday. For the quarter, the Chinese solar panel maker reported adjusted diluted earnings per American Depositary Share (ADS) of $1.28 on revenue of $361.4 million. In the same period a year ago, JinkoSolar reported a loss of about $5.04 per ADS on revenue of about $187.34 million. Fourth-quarter results also compare to the Thomson Reuters consensus estimates for earnings of $0.71 per ADS and $346.22 million in revenue. One ADS is equal to four ordinary shares.

For the full year, JinkoSolar posted EPS of $1.28 on revenues of $1.17 billion compared with an EPS loss of $10.69 on revenues of $769.61 million in 2012. Consensus estimates called for EPS of $0.30 on revenues of $1.14 billion.

Sequentially, revenues rose 11.5% while year-over-year growth came in at 87.5%. The company attributed the gains to increased module shipments, a higher average selling price and revenues generated from electricity sales.

The benefits of JinkoSolar’s move into building big power projects and then selling the electricity has started to pay off for the company. The company has a total of 213 megawatts connected to China’s electricity grid, more than half of which it connected in 2013. JinkoSolar expects to add another 400 megawatts this year and currently has a pipeline of projects totaling 700 megawatts in utility scale systems and 400 megawatts in distributed systems.

Gross margins on electricity sales were 60% and net margins were 30%. Here is the difference that makes to the bottom line: In 2012 gross margins from all revenues totaled just 4.8%; in 2013 that figure rose by a factor of four to 20.3%.

The company’s CEO said:

We closed out 2013 on a stronger footing by further cutting costs and improving gross margins for the fourth quarter to an industry-leading 24.7%. With total product shipments for the year reaching an all-time high of approximately 2 GW and a new revenue stream from our rapidly expanding downstream business, we have only increased our ambitions.

For the fourth quarter JinkoSolar shipped 533.3 megawatts of solar modules, above the upwardly revised estimate the company made at the end of the third quarter of 500 to 530 megawatts, and module shipments reached 1,765.1 megawatts, in the middle of the company’s forecast range. JinkoSolar expects to ship 440 to 470 megawatts of solar modules during the first quarter and 2,300 to 2,500 megawatts in the full year.

JinkoSolar shares closed on Friday at $32.72, up 6.2% for the day in a 52-week range of $3.96 to $37.98. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of around $43.50 before these results were announced. At the end of the third quarter, the price target for JinkoSolar was $25.00.

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