Results Follow Positive Growth
SunPower has announced financial results for its 2010 first quarter which ended April 4, 2010. Revenue for the 2010 first quarter was $347 million which compares to $212 million in the first quarter of 2009 and $548 million in the fourth quarter of 2009. The company's Components and Systems segments accounted for 81% and 19% of first-quarter 2010 revenue, respectively.
"Our European residential and commercial business is growing rapidly and we continue to maintain our leading share of U.S. installed systems," said Tom Werner, SunPower's CEO. "With the completion of our SunRay acquisition, we are constructing more than 100 MW of power plants in Europe and expect to monetize these projects, along with our previously completed Montalto power plant, by the end of 2010. In the U.S., we are on track to begin shipments in the second half of 2010 under our five year, 200 MWdc rooftop supply agreement with Southern California Edison. We also secured an incremental 40-MW power purchase agreement with Pacific Gas and Electric Company, bringing our contracted capacity at California Valley Solar Ranch to 250 MW. With our steady and diversified residential and commercial business, as well as our contracted utility and power plants business, we have very high confidence in our ability to meet our 2010 plan and deliver strong growth in 2011.
"Since all of SunPower's high-efficiency solar panels, including our new E18 Series and E19 Series are fully allocated in our 2010 bookings forecast, we have increased our access to third-party supply to meet demand. We also announced today our new SunPower Oasis Power Plant product, the industry's first modular solar power block that scales from 1-MW distributed installations to large central station power plants. SunPower Oasis expands our utility and power plant business opportunities providing our partners a cost-effective way to rapidly deploy fully integrated, utility-scale solar by streamlining the development and construction process. We are also accelerating our panel and system cost reduction plans as well as continuing to invest in research and development to lower capital expenditures per watt, improve return on invested capital and manufacturing performance metrics," concluded Werner.
On a Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) basis, for the first quarter of 2010, SunPower reported gross margin of 20.7%, an operating loss of $2.9 million and net income per diluted share of $0.13. This compares to gross margin of 15.2%, an operating loss of $18 million and a net loss per diluted share of $0.12 in the first quarter of 2009. First quarter 2010 GAAP results include a $0.33 per share tax benefit.
On a non-GAAP basis for the first quarter of 2010, SunPower reported a total gross margin of 22.5%. Operating income for the quarter was $13.5 million and net income per diluted share was $0.05, in-line with the company's previous guidance for the quarter. In the first quarter 2009, the company reported non-GAAP gross margin of 17.2%, an operating loss of $4.4 million and a net loss per diluted share of $0.09. For the 2010 first quarter, the Components segment non-GAAP gross margin was 25.7% and the Systems segment gross margin was 8.3%. The Systems segment results were impacted by weather-related seasonality, delayed projects as well as unabsorbed costs related to deferred revenue as a result of the company's acquisition of SunRay Renewable Ventures.
"In the first quarter, we took a number of steps to further strengthen our liquidity in order to support our revenue growth and capital expansion plans," said Dennis Arriola, SunPower's CFO. "Our recent $250 million convertible debt offering, our new $350 million letter of credit facility and a $75 million IFC loan will help to provide the funding we need in order to carry out our development and capital expenditure programs in 2010. We remain on schedule to sell our previously completed Montalto project and are on track to debt finance and monetize more than 60 MW of projects currently under construction in Italy this year. We have also substantially mitigated the risk of fluctuations in the Euro as 72% of our 2010 net Euro exposures are hedged at a rate of 1.38 US dollars per Euro."
