SunPower Improves But Is Not Expecting Any Growth
| 08 February 2013
Posted in News - SPVI news
California-based solar panel maker SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ:SPWR) recently released its fourth-quarter and full-year results. Although the company’s revenues increased by 4.64% sequentially and 8.59% year-over-year to $679M, its operating losses widened from $69.4M in Q4-2011 and $74M in Q3-2012 to $112.3M in Q4-2012 on the back of a 42.56% year-over-year increase in operating expenses to $159.1M. This translated into a quarterly loss per share of $1.22, far above analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg of $0.78 per share. The current results also include $179.3 million in pre-tax charges and adjustments, which are $86.3 million more than they were back in Q4-2011. Excluding these one-off charges, the earnings per share (EPS) climb to a positive $0.18, 350% more than the year-ago quarter’s $0.04 per share and significantly above the analysts’ estimated EPS (compiled by Thomson Reuters) of negative $0.15 per share.
For the full year, the results are relatively better as the business was able to reduce its losses by 46.13%. In 2012, SunPower increased its revenues by just 1.85% to $2.42B, but its operating losses fell from $534.1M in 2011 to $287.7M in 2012. Full-year adjusted EPS was $0.18 per share, which is 3 cents above analysts’ estimates and shows a 12.50% rise from $0.16 per share in 2011.
Total shipments for the quarter and the year were 153MW and 936MW, respectively. By comparison, First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR), the biggest American solar firm, is expecting annual shipments of 1.2GW in 2012.
SunPower was able to maintain its gross margin above 6.9% throughout 2012 and the business improved its overall annual gross margin from 9.5% in 2011 to 10.2% in 2012. In the previous fiscal year, the French oil major Total S.A. (EPA: FP) acquired about 60% of SunPower by investing $1.31 billion in the company. In a statement released with the earnings, the company’s president and CEO Tom Werner said, “We exited 2012 with strong fourth-quarter results as we benefited from our diversified downstream channel strategy, solid execution on our cost roadmap and increased customer demand for our high efficiency, industry leading technology."
The dip in solar panel prices, which fell by 31% in 2012 to $0.64 per watt, is hurting the margins but could give a boost to sales. SunPower now has approximately 1GW of projects in its pipeline.
However, despite the positive rhetoric, the outlook is stable at best. For the current quarter, SunPower is expecting shipments of 150MW-170MW and will earn revenues of $450M-$525M. Quarterly gross margins could either dip to 3% or remain stable at 7%. The EPS will be in the range of negative $0.85 and negative $0.60 per share. For the current year, the business is expecting revenues to remain fairly flat at $2.4B.
In its fourth quarter, SunPower generated 80% of its revenues from the Americas region (primarily North America), 11% from the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) region and 9% from the Asia Pacific, Australia and APAC region.
