FSLR stock plunged over 15% in extended trading on Thursday after First Solar Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) reported unexpected Q4 loss and a lower-than-expected sales forecast.
First Solar Misses Q4 Wall Street Estimates
The company reported a loss of $59 million or $0.56 per share in Q4, compared to a profit of $52 million or $0.49 per share reported a year ago. The company reported revenue of $1.4 billion, which was 102.54% growth from Q4 2018 when revenue was $691.24 million. The figures missed Wall Street estimates, which had analysts holding for adjusted EPS of $2.72 and revenue of $1.75 billion.
The CEO of First Solar, Mark Widmar, indicated that despite the company reporting a loss, they were pleased with the execution of their Series 6 roadmap. Widmar stated that the company is in a better position going forward because of the ongoing enhancements in throughput, as well as the efficiency of fleets and the high demand for Series 6.
FSLR stock fell as much as 14.30% and is now trading at $50.85.
First Solar’s 2020 Earnings Guidance
The company also provided its 2020 outlook in which it expects sales to range between $2.7 billion and $2.9 billion and earnings per share to be between $3.25 and $3.75. Wall Street analysts are looking for earnings per share of $3.56 and revenue of around $3.37 billion in 2020.
The company stated that it expects third-party module sales to account for almost 70% of its net sales in 2020. Last year, module production hit 5,662MW, following the shift to the Series 5 modules. Nevertheless, module shipments are likely to be in a narrow range of between 5.6GW and 6.0GW.
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Among the challenges the company is facing is its US project development business, which is currently under review. Although it’s at early stages, one of the potential options for First Solar is to sell the business. However, Widmar indicated that there is a lot of changes in the development of utility-scale PV projects in the US, and thus, the company has significant time to review its options regarding the project development segment in the US.
FSLR stock has lost almost 25% since early October.
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