Satcon Technology Corporation (NASDAQ:SATC) reported record 2Q sales, as the solar inverter industry continues to benefit from strong demand and supply constraints.
But despite soaring revenues, the company reported a net loss of $6.6 million, or $0.12 per share.
"Second quarter sales of $27.6 million represented the largest quarter in Satcon’s history, reaching revenues over two and a half times greater than what we reported in the same period a year ago," said Steve Rhoades, Satcon’s President and CEO. "We also grew gross margin to 21%, a significant improvement over last quarter’s 14%, fueled by the transfer of our primary manufacturing to our lower cost facility in Shenzhen, China, which we completed during the second quarter."
Bookings for the first half of 2010 totaled $123 million, an increase of 1100% over the same period last year, reflecting the growth that the company is experiencing in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. These bookings represent 506 megawatts (MW) of orders for Satcon’s products, with 39% of that demand coming from North America, 25% from Europe and 36% from Asia Pacific.
For the first half of 2010, the company shipped 161 MW of its PowerGate(R) Plus, Prism(TM), and Solstice(TM) products.
At June 30, 2010, the company’s backlog, which consists of firm fixed purchase orders with customers, was $82 million. Backlog from Asia topped the list representing 43% of orders to be delivered. North America contributed 42% to the mix, while Europe contributed 15%. Backlog as of August 3, 2010 totaled $111 million, of which about 90% is currently expected to ship this calendar year.
"This global demand has driven our recent move to raise our global manufacturing to over 1 gigawatt, and move toward over 1.75 gigawatts of global capacity in 2011," Rhoades said.
In June, Southern California Edison chose Satcon to supply at least 75% of the inverters for the utility’s 250-megawatt solar rooftop initiative.
"As we look to the third quarter of 2010, we are well-positioned to deliver significant top-line growth with revenues expected to be in the $43-$47 million range," Rhoades said. "We are also confirming that we anticipate achieving gross margin greater than 30% in the second half of the year as a result of the continuous improvements we are making to our operations and manufacturing supply chain, and that we remain on target to have our operations plan fully implemented by the end of 3Q. With these improvements, we expect that our margins in the third quarter will be in the mid to high 20’s, and margins for the fourth quarter will be in the low to mid 30% range."
The company also said it expects 4Q10 revenues to exceed 3Q10.
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