SunPower Earnings Top Expectations

SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ: SPWR) reported fourth quarter financial results after the markets closed Wednesday. The company had $1.73 in earnings per share (EPS) on $1.36 billion in revenue compared to consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters that call for $1.53 in EPS on $1.27 billion in revenue. The same period from the previous year had $0.26 in EPS on $609.66 million in revenue.

In terms of guidance the company expects first quarter revenue to be in the range of $290 million to $340 million with a gross margin of 12% to 13%. There are consensus estimates that call for $0.33 in EPS on $675.68 million in revenue.

In distributed generation, SunPower continued to make investments in Smart Energy and launched a range of complete customer solutions for the commercial market that will significantly reduce cost while improving performance.

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Looking at the upstream aspect, the company again delivered record output and yield while ramping up its new Fab 4 cell manufacturing facility for volume production in 2016.

Tom Werner, SunPower President and CEO, commented on earnings:

2015 was a transformational year for the solar industry as increasing demand, favorable policy developments and broad global support for renewables created strong industry growth fundamentals.  SunPower benefited from these trends as we exceeded our forecasts and closed out the year with record fourth quarter and full year non-GAAP 2015 results. During the year, we executed on our technology roadmaps, added new products and launched our joint YieldCo vehicle 8point3 Energy Partners. We are well positioned to capitalize on the continued growing adoption of solar in North America as well as key international markets such as China and Latin America. We also expanded our global power plant footprint while completing the world’s largest solar power plant, located in California.

On the books the company had $954.5 million in cash and cash equivalents compared to $956.2 million in the same quarter from the previous year.

Shares of SunPower closed Wednesday up 2.2% at $24.06, with a consensus analyst price target of $37.26 and a 52-week trading range of $18.25 to $35.11. Following the release of the earnings report, the stock was up 0.4% at $24.15 in the after-hours trading session.