Sunpower raises gross margin in 2013
San Jose, USA - Sunpower Corp. announced financial results for its 2013 fourth quarter and fiscal year ended.
"Solid execution enabled us to substantially beat our plan every quarter this year," said Tom Werner, SunPower president and CEO. "Demand remains strong in both our power plant and distributed generation businesses, and we are executing well in our manufacturing operations with all solar cell fabrication facilities (Fab) running at full capacity. Our technology and operations teams continue to drive down panel cost as we reduced our annual costs by more than 20 percent for the second year in a row. Additionally, our new 350-megawatt (MW) Fab "Our partnership with Total is also facilitating expansion into a number of new solar markets worldwide. For example, final financing was secured for construction of the 70-MW merchant power plant in Chile and we were awarded an 86-MW power plant project in the most recent South Africa tender process. With a 6-gigawatt (GW) global pipeline, continued focus on the Middle East and our C7 tracker joint venture in China, we expect further international project announcements this year," concluded Werner.
"SunPower delivered another strong quarter across all business segments as we exceeded our revenue and profit targets for the quarter and the year," said Chuck Boynton, SunPower CFO. "Additionally, we strengthened our balance sheet while generating approximately $270 million in free cash flow in 2013 by prudently managing our working capital. We were also pleased to extend our relationship with Bank of America as their scalable, proven platform will help us drive continued growth in our residential lease channel. With the further monetization of our significant project pipeline, continued focus on expanding our global footprint and ability to optimize our cost and capital structure, we are well positioned to meet our goals for 2014."
First Quarter and Fiscal Year 2014 Financial Outlook The company's first quarter 2014 consolidated non-GAAP guidance is as follows: revenue of $650 million to $700 million, gross margin of 18 percent to 20 percent, net income per diluted share of $0.25 to $0.40 and MW recognized in the range of 320 MW to 350 MW. On a GAAP basis, the company expects revenue of $575 million to $625 million, gross margin of 18 percent to 20 percent and net income per diluted share of $0.10 to $0.25.
For fiscal year 2014, the company expects non-GAAP revenue of $2.4 billion to $2.6 billion, gross margin of 19 percent to 21 percent, net income per diluted share of $1.00 to $1.30, capital expenditures of $150 million to $170 million and GW recognized in the range of 1.15 GW to 1.25 GW. On a GAAP basis, the company expects revenue of $2.45 billion to $2.65 billion, gross margin of 20 percent to 22 percent and net income per diluted share of $0.65 to $0.95.
Source: IWR Online, 13 Feb 2014
