from:http://www.greentechmedia.com
SolarEdge just announced record revenues, strong gross margins and continued growth ahead in its earnings call this afternoon. The company designs and builds module level power electronics (MLPE), a fast growing segment of the PV inverter market that now has microinverter leader Enphase and SolarEdge running neck and neck for market lead.
Quarter and fiscal year summary
- Record revenue at SolarEdge was $98.4 million for the quarter, beating guidance and analyst estimates. (Enphase's revenue for the second quarter of 2015 was $102.1 million.) SolarEdge revenue was $325.1 million for the fiscal year, up 144 percent year-over-year
- GAAP record gross margin of 28.7 percent for the quarter and 25.2 percent for fiscal year 2015
- GAAP net income for fiscal Q4 2015 was $9.3 million, and net income for fiscal year 2015 was $21.1 million compared to a net loss of $21.4 million in fiscal year 2014
- SolarEdge shipped 284 megawatts (AC) of inverters in the quarter with 920 megawatts shipped in fiscal year 2015
CEO Guy Sella said that the company was seeing "healthy demand" while "maintaining stable ASP." The CEO noted that revenue growth in Germany and the Netherlands was very strong despite a soft EU PV market.
SolarEdge is counting on growth in the U.S. and global commercial market with a new line of 33-kilowatt inverters for larger commercial applications. The company continues to work on new monitoring functions and cost reduction. New automated lines in Mexico and Hungary will drive costs down and provide for a capacity of 5,000 optimizers per day, according to the CEO.
Sella noted that the firm had recorded two consecutive profitable quarters as a public company. He added that he was looking forward to a supplier relationship with SunEdison, the new owner of residential solar installer, Vivint Solar.
MJ Shiao, GTM's director of solar research, has noted, "Globally, we see a huge opportunity for module-level power electronics, growing from less than 4 percent of global annual inverter shipments in 2014 to more than 11 percent by 2018. In 2015, we expect total combined MLPE shipments to well exceed 2 gigawatts. Furthermore, we expect the U.S. residential market to continue growing at 50 percent to 55 percent year-over-year ahead of the federal Investment Tax Credit cliff in 2017 -- a strong foundation and growth opportunity for MLPE vendors."
SolarEdge Q3 guidance
SolarEdge expects revenues to be within the range of $108 million to $112 million next quarter with gross margins within the range of 27 percent to 29 percent (Enphase expects revenue for the third quarter of 2015 to be within a range of $100 million to $105 million.)
Fig: SolarEdge units shipped
Fig: SolarEdge net income
Shares of SolarEdge were up 4 percent to $34.40 after-hours after the firm beat analysts' estimates.
