The analysis of buckling, post-buckling behaviour and load carrying capacity of prismatic composite pole structures is conducted. The asymptotic expansion established by Byskov-Hutchinson is used in the second order approximation. The thin-walled tubular columns are simply supported at the ends and subject to the uniform compression. Several types of cross-sections with and without intermediate stiffeners are considered. The present paper is the continuation of a previous paper by the authors (1999) where the modal interaction of thin-walled composite beamcolumns was investigated.