U.S. headquartered solar panel manufacturer First Solar released its Q3, 2024 earnings report. The company missed on expectations for revenue and moderately lowered its guidance for full year 2024 revenues.
First Solar (FSLR) posted revenues of $887 million, falling 17.6% short of expectations, while its reported earnings per share landed at $2.91, about 8% lower than expected.
The company lowered its 2024 full year revenue forecast to between $4.10 billion and $4.25 billion, down from its previous forecast of $4.4 billion to $4.6 billion.
Shares were down roughly 9% in after-hours trading sessions but recovered most of the losses on the following trading day at the time of writing.
The company reached a record quarter for manufacturing production, reaching 3.8 GW in Q3. The company has a contracted order backlog reaching into the next decade, with over 73.3 GW of orders.
First Solar ended the quarter with $1.3 billion in cash and cash equivalents and $582 million in total debt. It had a $431 million capital expenditure in-quarter. It also paid $50 million in warranty fees due to manufacturing issues with its Series 7 line.
“As we approach the end of 2024, we remain pleased with the progress made across our business, navigating against a backdrop of industry volatility and political uncertainty, with a continued focus on balancing growth, profitability, and liquidity,” said Mark Widmar, chief executive officer of First Solar. “We expect that our disciplined, long-term approach will allow us to work through the outcomes of the upcoming U.S. elections as well as the continued volatility across the solar manufacturing industry.”
First Solar has an average 12 month price target of $288, showing potential growth from current trading levels of $197 per share.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.