Earnings Labs

First Solar, Inc. (FSLR)

Q3 2007 Earnings Call· Wed, Nov 7, 2007

$196.26

-0.62%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+34.29%

1 Week

+10.93%

1 Month

+49.59%

vs S&P

+46.77%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the First Solar ThirdQuarter 2007 Conference Call. Today's call is being webcast live on theInvestor section of First Solar's website at www.firstsolar.com. At this timeall participants are in a listen-only mode. As a reminder, today's call isbeing recorded. I would now like to turn the program over to Erica Mannion,Investor Relations, First Solar. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Erica Mannion

Management

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us forFirst Solar's third quarter 2007 conference call. Shortly after market closetoday, the company issued a press release announcing its third quarter 2007financial results. If you did not receive a copy of the press release, you canobtain one from the investor section of First Solar's website atwww.firstsolar.com. You may listen to an audio replay of this conference callby dialing 888-203-1112 within the United States,or 719-457-0820 if you are not within the United States. Please enter reservation number 6614343. The audio replaywill remain available until November 12th at 11:59,Eastern time. Also, a webcast replay will be available in approximately twohours, in the investor section of the company's website, and if you are a subscriberof FactSet, you can obtain a transcript within two hours. With me today are: Mike Ahearn, Chief Executive Officer andChairman; Jens Meyerhoff, Chief Financial Officer; and Bruce Sohn, President.Mike will begin an overview of the company's achievements and progress in thethird quarter of 2007. Jens Meyerhoff will provide you with third quarterfinancial results, and the financial guidance for 2007 and 2008. We will thenopen the call up for questions. All financial numbers reported and discussed on the calltoday will be based on Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. The companyhas allocated approximately one hour for today's call. During the Q&Aperiod, as a courtesy to those individuals seeking to ask questions, we askthat participants limit themselves to one question, and one follow-up question. Now, I would like to make a brief statement regardingforward-looking remarks that you may hear on today's call. During the course ofthe call, the company will make projections and other comments that areforward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Securities laws.These statements are based on current information and expectations that areinherently subject to change and involve a number of…

Mike Ahearn

Management

Thank you, Erica, and thank you for participating in today'sthird quarter 2007 earnings call. During the third quarter, a number of thebusiness initiatives that we've been working on this year came to fruition andbegan to produce strong operating and financial results. We more than doubled our revenues sequentially over thesecond quarter to $159 million, posted net income of $38.5 million beforegiving effect to the release of valuation allowances against certain foreigndeferred tax assets--which brought our total GAAP net income to $46 million--andreduced our manufacturing costs to $1.19 per watt, which included $0.04 perwatt of stock-based compensation expense. I'd like to briefly summarize our progress on the keyinitiatives that underlie these results, starting with module production. During the third quarter, we more than doubled productionsequentially over the second quarter to 69.4 megawatts, with the increaseresulting from the operation of all seven of our production lines at fullcapacity for substantially the entire quarter, and also from improvements inmodule production throughput and conversion efficiencies. The third quarterproduction volume implies an annual production rate of 39.6 megawatts per line,which represents a substantial improvement over prior periods. I should point out that while we're pleased with ourprogress, it's important to note that these improvements are events rather thantime-driven. They do not establish a linear trend, and future improvements willbecome increasingly more difficult to achieve. Since our last call, we announced our intention to constructtwo additional factories in Malaysiaconsisting of four lines each, bringing our total announced Malaysiamanufacturing center to four factories and 16 production lines, with a totalannual production capacity of slightly over 600 megawatts, based on our thirdquarter run rate. Construction of our first factory in Malaysiais proceeding according to schedule, and we expect initial equipment deliverythis quarter. We started site preparations for our second and third Malaysiafactories in August and October, respectively, and…

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

Thank you, Mike, and good afternoon. The third quarter of2007 concludes another important milestone for First Solar, as we essentiallyreached our next steady state quarter of full capacity utilization. Revenues for the third quarter were $159 million, anincrease of $81.8 million over the second quarter of 2007, and an increase of$118.2 million compared to the same period of last year. Gross margin for the third quarter was 51.6%, up from 36.7%in the second quarter of 2007, and up from 39.9% in the same period last year.Gross margin benefited from the rapid capacity ramp at our Frankfurt(Oder) plant, effectively eliminating the ramp costexperienced in the second quarter. Gross margin also benefited from favorable pricing, due to acontinued strong Euro, higher module throughput, and an increased sellablewatts per module, driven by higher conversion efficiencies. During the third quarter, the average Euro conversion ratereached $1.37 per Euro, compared to a three-year historical average ofapproximately $1.28. While the near-term weakness of the Euro, especially aftertoday, appears to be an unlikely scenario, we continue to evaluate ourperformance against our long-term model, which assumes a less favorable, morehistorical exchange rate environment. The strong Euro contributed year-over-year 3.4 percentagepoints to our gross margin. In order to mitigate volatility around the Euro, wehave executed forward contracts between now and the end of 2008 that allow usto sell €133.6 million, at an average exchange rate of $1.44, hedgingapproximately 15% of our expected 2008 revenues. As we get closer to production start at our Malaysianfactory, we intend to add further contracts to mitigate income state andvolatility. Our cost-per-watt for the third quarter reached a new lowwith $1.15 per watt excluding stock-based compensation expenses. Ourcost-per-watt declined, due to higher throughput and module conversionefficiency, as well as realized economies of scale and lower depreciationexpenses at our German plant. We expect to achieve…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our first question will come fromDavid Edwards, with Morgan Stanley with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

David Edwards -Morgan Stanley

Analyst

Good afternoon. Couple of questions, just on the wideradoption that you were talking about, in terms of moving the company beyondthat. Can you talk a little bit about whether the new contracts you've got arefocused on expanding in the new markets, and give some thought in terms of whatyou think the direction will be that you'll need to take in terms of ASPs, asyou move beyond the core markets of Germanyand Spain?

Mike Ahearn

Management

Yeah, David. The contracts we announced are addressing theEuropean feed-in markets. They would not be oriented towards expansion marketsthat I was alluding to. I think the near-term market, for us, by way ofexpansion, would be the utility segment, if you will, in the US. And I can't give you any specific ASP indication yet,because we're still working through the market analysis and holdingdiscussions. But I think it's pretty clear that to be competitive in terms of therenewable energy solution for utilities, the pricing perhaps will come downfrom where PV has historically been priced. So we are imagining some reduction.

David Edwards -Morgan Stanley

Analyst

Alright, great. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

And our next question will come from Steve O'Rourke withDeutsche Bank. Please go ahead, sir. Steve O’Rourke -Deutsche Bank: Thank you. Good afternoon.

Mike Ahearn

Management

Hi, Steve. Steve O’Rourke -Deutsche Bank: How are you? The Babcock & Brown as a relationship herein these new contracts; what is their involvement? Is it project management andfinancing?

Mike Ahearn

Management

I would refer to it as turnkey development, Steve. It'scomparable to our other customers in Europe so it wouldinclude siting, financing, developing, and overseeing the construction,O&M, the full range. Steve O’Rourke -Deutsche Bank: Okay. When you think about that and new contracts going intoplace, and maybe your move toward the utilities here in the US, what are yourintentions--First Solar's intentions--towards selling energy longer-term,rather than simply selling modules?

Mike Ahearn

Management

Well, broadly speaking, our intention is to take a businessmodel that will best penetrate the utility segment and drive attractiveeconomics and, historically, that's been through a PPA offering the utilitiesin the US. And if you look at what wind has done, for example, it's notclear--it's not a foregone conclusion--that the PPA model is what will evolvein the US. It'sfrom our point of view, because there are issues pending in the current energybill that would have some impact on that, for example. So, we're most likely going to have a business model that'sflexible and open to energy sales, either directly, or through partneringrelationships. I think we'll let the customer dialog flush that out. Steve O’Rourke -Deutsche Bank: Fair enough. And the markets you would first look at thatin…

Mike Ahearn

Management

…would be regulated utilities in the USthat are under RPS obligations, or quotas that have not been fulfilled at thispoint. Steve O’Rourke -Deutsche Bank: Okay. And one last quick question; then I'll jump back inthe queue. What was conversion efficiency in the quarter?

Mike Ahearn

Management

Average conversion efficiency was 10.5%. Steve O’Rourke -Deutsche Bank: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Rob Stone, with Cowen &Company. Rob Stone - Cowen& Company: Hi. I wonder if you could just shed a little more color onthe volume gains in the various factories. Did you achieve the same throughput?I didn't quite catch the annualized volume per line that you mentioned, Mike.

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

That was 39.6 megawatts.

Mike Ahearn

Management

Yes. 39.6 was the average, Rob, and that's a reasonable way.Now that we're steady state with seven lines, I think that's a reasonable wayto look at our production--going forward. Rob Stone - Cowen& Company: Okay. Can you comment on the watts-per-module output…ifthere is higher efficiency now?

Mike Ahearn

Management

Yes, the average watts-per-module is 70. There's adistribution range around that, but for the third quarter it was 71. Rob Stone - Cowen& Company: Right, thank you.

Operator

Operator

We take our next question from Vishal Shah, with LehmanBrothers.

Vishal Shah - LehmanBrothers

Analyst

Yeah. Hi, thanks for taking my question. Can you talk aboutyour flexibility to increase 2008 capacity. I believe, if I look at the currentplans, you are looking at about 440 megawatts of capacity by the end of 2008.What flexibility do you have to bring the Malaysian lines made up faster thanexpected?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

Well, I think, maybe I have to answer this question a littlemore broadly. So obviously our triggers to further expand capacity are the sameas we have experienced them here historically. So its increase inthroughput--unit throughput--plus increase in conversion efficiency, and thenit's the timing of the ramp. So, if you look at the 2008 guidance we have given, we havemodeled the upper range of the guidance along successful bring up of ourFrankfurt/Oder plant.

Vishal Shah - LehmanBrothers

Analyst

Okay. Fair enough. And would you assume, namely, capacitydecreases about 40 megawatts by the end of '08?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

I think what we've seen, historically, is that we've modeleda year-over-year throughput improvement of about 3%, which we exceeded in 2007.Obviously, and we've historically demonstrated 50 basis points off conversionefficiency gain, so if you applied those metrics, the answer would be, yes--itwould exceed that metric you mentioned.

Vishal Shah - LehmanBrothers

Analyst

Okay, great, and then one other question on the USmarket. You said what percentage of the capacity would you allocate for newmarkets? Roughly speaking, would be 10%, or more than tha,t or less than that?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

Well, I think in the lower end of the guidance; I thinkyou're talking probably in the sub 10% range, and the higher end of productionoutput--the incremental capacity--would be allocated to those emerging markets.

Vishal Shah - LehmanBrothers

Analyst

Great, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Sanjay Shrestha, with Lazard.Please go ahead.

Sanjay Shrestha -Lazard

Analyst

Great. First of all, congratulations on a great executionhere, guys. Just couple of quick questions. Kind of staying with the US market,and given the traction that you guys are getting here from your cost-reductionstandpoint efficiency gain, so is it going to be one of those where you kind ofwait for the investment tax credit to move forward before we really start tosee some sort of gain on long-term contract in place for you guys, or is itgoing to be one of those where, given your significant cost advantage than the potentialfor ASP to go down, are you going to say, maybe, like structured a contract fora year or two, and as we go forward, maybe we can evaluate that further…howshould we think about how this is going to unfold for you guys?

Mike Ahearn

Management

Of course, there's a 30% investment tax credit in place now [federally]that sunsets the end of 2008. We think it's more likely than not that that willbe extended. If it were not extended, there's a permanent 10% IPC in the internalrevenue code. So, we're prepared to move forward under either of thosescenarios.

Sanjay Shrestha -Lazard

Analyst

Great, great. And then, in terms of sort of thinking aboutthe large-scale power plant type application. Given that you guys are going to,naturally, have a much lower balance to system cost even it's going to be a larger-scaleapplication, how would you stack up, let's say fast forward another 12 months,versus the solar thermal, or even, let's say there was some traction with theconcentrated PV guys, or even versus the wind guys, when we started to thinkabout delivering electricity, to really address this RPS standards?

Mike Ahearn

Management

Yeah, I think, the way to look at the economics is to lookat the value of the conventional electricity that's being replaced. So, wind ismostly replacing base-load solar. Both PV and solar thermal is mostly replacingeither peak, or shoulder peak, type load, which is more expensive electricity.So, you could get to the same sort of parity point at a higher ASP, or priceper kilowatt-hour with solar than you could for wind. As compared to solar thermal, I think there are some prosand cons that PV has. Some of the pros it's proven, we have data, there arereal projects that have been done in Europe now withgood data and demonstrated economics, in our case. It's available to be deployedstarting in 2008. It's modular and scalable, so we can achieve compellingeconomics with projects as small as 5 megawatts and up. CSP has to be muchlarger in order of scale. It's much less proven at this point, and we don'trequire any water. So, we have some things going for us that way. In situationsyou might find load shifting or generation shifting capabilities with the CSPthat could make sense in a given situation, but on balance, I think, we competevery favorably and there's an immediate opportunity an immediate need on thepart of utilities to meet RPS quotas and so, we think we've put together apretty compelling solution.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Adam Hinckley, with CIBC WorldMarkets.

Adam Hinckley - CIBCWorld Markets

Analyst

Hey, guys, thanks for taking my question. First, just goingback to Rob's question earlier, did you comment on what the production was byfacility and also talk about cost for the margin by facility?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

Yes. So, I think on this one, I'll probably have to announcea little disappointment here. I think consistent with what we said earlier,since we're done with the ramp, until we ramp new plants, report our productioncapacity and output on a consolidated basis. So, we're probably not going to goto that level of detail any longer.

Adam Hinckley - CIBCWorld Markets

Analyst

Okay, well then could you, maybe at least just comment onhow much lower cost is Germany,relative to Ohio? And then,possibly, what the expectations are for cost of Malaysia,relative to Germany?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

Yes. I think with respect to the German cost per watts, Icontinue to trend favorably over Perrysburg, I think historically, we saidabout $0.07. We've exceeded that, so the favorable FFO compared to Perrysburg,is about $0.10 of a cost advantage, due to the fact I mentioned. We expect at least a $0.20 cost per watt decline in Malaysiawhen compared to Perrysburg, and obviously, that's been--or might as well amodel has been--in our model for a while. We will update that as we commenceproduction and reach full capacity at our first Malaysian plant.

Adam Hinckley - CIBCWorld Markets

Analyst

Great. And if I could just sneak in one more--it looks likeoff of the improvement in the nameplate per line this quarter was very highlydriven off of throughput improvements, and the quarter-over-quarter throughputimprovement it was an excess of what you're saying your annual targets are. Could you just give us a little color as to why thatthroughput improvement was so high and why we shouldn't expect that to continuegoing forward at that level?

Bruce Sohn

Analyst

Yes. This is Bruce. The performance and the output per linewas up significantly to the 39 megawatts per line that both Mike and Jensmentioned earlier, and that's really a reflection of the continued refinementand elimination of various bottlenecks in the line, improvements ofproductivity throughout the factory, and so forth. Similarly, you will noticethat we are currently talking about the R&D coder at this stage as a resultof the work we've been able to do. The R&D coder we’re able to use more effectively to workon our research and future scientific applications. And so, as a part of theline, we’re now reporting in aggregate as Jens reported. And consistently we’vealso continued to improve the efficiency steadily, over time. As Mikementioned, averaging at the 70 watts skews.

Adam Hinckley - CIBCWorld Markets

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go now to Michael Molnar, with Goldman Sachs.

Michael Molnar -Goldman Sachs

Analyst

Just…most of my questions have been answered, but when wethink about the lines and the throughput gains, when you make gains, you areable to apply it, I guess, fairly quickly to the other lines; is that the waywe're supposed to think about it now? Each line will be 9.9 per quarter. Isthat the way to think about it?

Bruce Sohn

Analyst

Yeah, the Copy Smart technology that we're using forreplicating the plants is also used to maintain consistency in lockstep betweenthe facilities as well. So we're able to leverage and speed improvements byidentifying them in one facility, validating them, and quickly rolling them outto the other lines. That's one of the significant advantages of the Copy Smarttechnology even after we've started up.

Michael Molnar -Goldman Sachs

Analyst

Okay, great, and just one. I didn't catch the GAAP operatingmargin for 2008. Jens, could you just repeat that?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

Okay, the GAAP operating margin for 2008 was expectedbetween 23% and 27%.

Operator

Operator

Jesse Pichel, with Piper Jaffray.

Jesse Pichel - PiperJaffray

Analyst

Yes, congratulations, as well. I have a few questions. WereASPs up 4.5% sequentially? Could you explain why that may be?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

I think the key driver here, Jesse, was a favorable Euroexchange rate quarter-over-quarter, and we had some slight customer miximplications.

Jesse Pichel - PiperJaffray

Analyst

Okay, and just so that we're all clear on modeling. Weshould also model Malaysiaat 39.6?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

Yes, at this stage you can probably tell from our tone, weare a little bit departing from the nameplate concept and find the basiccapacity off the demonstrated run rate. So the answer would be yes.

Jesse Pichel - PiperJaffray

Analyst

Okay, that's great, and could you talk about any kind ofscheduled plant shutdowns you have for maintenance or is maintenance ongoing incleaning the coders, for instance?

Bruce Sohn

Analyst

We have a routine schedule for the coders as well as all ofthe pieces of equipment in the factory. There is a variety of scheduledmaintenance, and all of that's baked into the guidance numbers that Jensmentioned.

Jesse Pichel - PiperJaffray

Analyst

So, really, we won't see a major impact in any oneparticular quarter from any kind of shutdown. Could you give us an update,Bruce, on what you guys are seeing in terms of efficiencies in the lab on thesame device structure on altered device structures, perhaps somewhat of anupdate to the data that you presented at NREL six months ago?

Bruce Sohn

Analyst

Yes, we continued to do our research and, as you know,Jesse, we've historically had improvement rates of about a half a percentagepoint per year. We have a roadmap out in the future, and we continue to work onthat. As we do in one factory, as we prove them out in one facility, well, levelsout to the other factories as quickly as we can.

Operator

Operator

And we take our question now from Satya Kumar, with CreditSuisse.

Satya Kumar - CreditSuisse

Analyst

Yeah, thanks for taking my questions. My question is onplant startup costs. I was actually modeling startup costs of $25 million-$30million for a 120 megawatt line. I see that you're producing close to about 180megawatts more. I just thought that you would have had a higher startup costnext year. Is there a change in the way I should think about startup costs?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

Well, I think, Satya, what you see in the guidance and theguidance for the startup cost is.,I think, fundamentally…the profile. I think thatwe have used in the past, really hasn't changed here. However, we do see, sincethere is compensation expense component in the plant startup costs, right aswe're bringing on the employees for each plant's. Given now that we're movingfrom Frankfurt/Oder to Malaysia,we do see some benefits due to the lower salaries there.

Satya Kumar - CreditSuisse

Analyst

Okay, okay. So which quarter should I expect the firstcontribution from the Malaysia1 factory to come in?

Bruce Sohn

Analyst

The factory is going to startup similar to the FFO operationlast year. So we saw first revenue out of FFO in Q2 of 2007. We expect to seefirst revenue from KLM 1, the first factory in Malaysia,in Q2 of next year, and to see the first fully ramped quarter in Q4 of '08.

Satya Kumar - CreditSuisse

Analyst

On the fully ramped quarter--that was my other question--itseems like you've produced Frankfurt at full capacity inQ3. So why should I not expect that you could start up the Malaysian plants atthat one quarter cadence. Or should I expect the first Malaysian plants to havea slightly slower startup?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

I think, technically, I think while we are very pleased withthe output of Frankfurt/Oder in Q3, there was still an elemental brand builtinto July. I think one thing, what I think you see us with the productionguidance for 2008, we are bringing up now multiple plants in much faster atmuch faster replication speed, and we believe that possibly can increase as therisk of bringing up these factories and we tried to build that into ourguidance.

Satya Kumar - CreditSuisse

Analyst

And when you do these multiple factories, I think, Bruce,you talked about seeing potentially some increased levels of risk with yoursuppliers. Can you elaborate a little bit on that? What kind of capacity doyour key equipment suppliers have and the material suppliers, like (inaudible)suppliers have, to support your accelerating capacity expansion?

Bruce Sohn

Analyst

As Mike mentioned, there is obviously some added riskbringing up four facilities immediately following each other and on anaccelerated schedule that we haven't encountered previously. However, we dowork very closely with our equipment suppliers, and we work very closely withour material suppliers to ensure that they are ready as we bring up thesefactories and we announce them. We go through a rigorous process to ensuretheir readiness, and we feel like they're well positioned for the upcomingramps for the four factories.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) We will move now to Michael Carboywith Signal Hill. Please go ahead.

Michael Carboy -Signal Hill

Analyst

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Two questions for you,and sort of a follow-on to the last one. Aside from availability issues of rawmaterials, can you comment on any concerns you may have with regard to thelogistics of delivery and provisioning of those materials of facilities at therates here you talked about? And then, back to the earlier PPA issue. If, First Solar wereto actively engage in participating in the PPA, as principal in them, can youexplain to us how you plan on utilizing the passive tax losses and gains, giventhat you're an operating company? Thank you.

Mike Ahearn

Management

Yes, Michael. This is Mike Ahearn. I think as far asconstraints with respect to factory expansion, we think we're managing thatpretty well and carefully. We don't see any obvious constraints with respect toequipment or material to support the plan rapid scale up. So I think we're wellpositioned in that respect. On the PPA front, I think it's unlikely that we would be theowner of a project that's utilizing the federal tax incentive and accelerateddepreciation. I don't think we're likely to be able to utilize that from a taxbenefit point of view. We would use some other structure.

Michael Carboy -Signal Hill

Analyst

I think it’s…you'd rely on a financing partner?

Mike Ahearn

Management

Yes.

Michael Carboy -Signal Hill

Analyst

Okay. Thanks.

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

Yes, I think maybe to add real quick, Michael. Right,. So far,given the current regulations around--number one, there is an AMT hurdle thatyou would have to take as a company. But for us, more importantly, we do notexpect to be a cash taxpayer in the USfor the next four to five years given the deferred tax effect on our books.

Michael Carboy -Signal Hill

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And now we take our questions from Dan Ries, with CollinsStewart.

Dan Ries - CollinsStewart

Analyst

Hi. Most of them have been answered, but could you give anycolor on maybe your split of business in Germanyversus Spainduring the quarter?

Mike Ahearn

Management

Dan, I don't have the quarterly number, but the annualtarget is somewhere around 75%, 80% for 2007, declining fairly significantly in2008.

Dan Ries - CollinsStewart

Analyst

That's Germany?

Mike Ahearn

Management

Yeah, declining, that's Germany--asa consequence of the existing customers that we've had on Board for some timenow, developing project pipelines outside of Germany,there's a lead time from the development of those to realization. But as a result of the project pipelinescoming into fruition next year, you'll see a shift, to some extent, outside Germany,and then, of course, a lot of the newer customers we've added this year are notGerman-centric, or even necessarily participating in Germany.So, it will start to shift in 2008, more dramatically.

Dan Ries - CollinsStewart

Analyst

Just a quick follow-up. 10.5 was the average efficiency forthe quarter--can you say if you are consistent with that now, or was itsomething--9.7 for the first month of the quarter, and then higher for the lasttwo months, or something like that?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

It's the average; it's the average, Dan, I think that'sprobably the extent of granularity we have there.

Dan Ries - CollinsStewart

Analyst

Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

We’ll take our next question from Eric Brown, with Banc ofAmerica.

Eric Brown - Banc of America

Analyst

Hi. Now that you've announced all four facilities in Malaysia,you've kind of tapped out your land there, I think. Are you looking at newlocations in Malaysiaand elsewhere?

Mike Ahearn

Management

We have a team, there is a replication team that's organizedaround the Copy Smart technology that Bruce mentioned, has an ongoing processfor site identification and analysis of various locations. So that's ongoing,and we've got potential sites in the queue.

Eric Brown - Banc of America

Analyst

Do you think you can get the same tax holidays in these newlocations?

Mike Ahearn

Management

I don't know. I mean you find these incentives come indifferent structures. I mean, if you look at what we got in Germanyit's also significant benefit that was structured differently it's hard to saywhere we would end up and exactly what we would get at this point.

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

It certainly sets the stage for any negotiation.

Eric Brown - Banc of America

Analyst

Okay. And then, Jens, I think you said that the tax holidaydoesn't kick in until 2009, is that right?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

Yes, that is correct, because as you bring up the plants,you have to sum up from running losses that we wanted to say again before we gointo the tax holiday.

Eric Brown - Banc of America

Analyst

So what should we model for the Malaysian output after 2008?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

So, I think, as I mentioned before, is the long-term taxrate is subject to global cash availability. So we feel comfortable at thispoint in time that it could possibly middle in the mid-20s, long term. Mathematically, that rate could be significantly lower,however, than you could deal with taxation on cash repatriation in our years.

Eric Brown - Banc of America

Analyst

Okay. And then I think you said your '08 revenue wasdependent on the lower exchange rate than this year, is that right? Whatexchange rate are you assuming in that revenue forecast?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

$1.31.

Eric Brown - Banc of America

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) We go now to Steve O'Rourke, withDeutsche Bank for follow-up.

Steve O'Rourke -Deutsche Bank

Analyst

Thank you. A few questions here, can you tell us what thesplit of ground mount versus building mount systems will be in 2007, and how doyou think that will change in '08?

Mike Ahearn

Management

It's typically 60% ground mount, 40% roof mount, Steve, andthat's for the year. That's in the ballpark. How it will change in '08, I thinksomewhat as a function of our allocation of modules into existing versus newmarkets. And, of course, if they come into the USutility market, that will be predominantly ground mount. So I would say if itmoves, it will move more toward ground mounted.

Steve O'Rourke -Deutsche Bank

Analyst

Okay. And for the 20% or so of systems in the field that youdirectly monitor, what's the average annual percent degradation in energyoutput that you're seeing?

Mike Ahearn

Management

Well, the standard power warranty implies 0.8% annually, butwhat we're seeing is actually somewhat better than that. It's probably closerto 0.5.

Operator

Operator

We’ll turn now to David Edwards, with Morgan Stanley.

David Edwards -Morgan Stanley

Analyst

Hey, just one quick follow-up--the depreciation benefit thatyou showed in the quarter, is that a one-time item, or is that something thatcarries forward?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

No, actually, the depreciation benefit I mentioned is reallyright embedded in the financing of the Frankfurt/Oder plant in Germany.As you may recall, we did get some subsidies there on to support the plantinvestments. Essentially, one-third was paid by the German government, soit's lower fixed asset base there that translates approximately into $8 millionof annual depreciation savings.

David Edwards -Morgan Stanley

Analyst

Okay. So that's a Germany-only item at this point?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

Yes, that is correct.

Eric Brown - Banc of America

Analyst

Okay. Thanks. Operator And we take our next question from Jesse Pichel. Please goahead, sir.

Jesse Pichel - PiperJaffray

Analyst

Yes. I'm wondering about what you would think about analystsmodeling additional lines above and beyond your announcement, your planned capacityexpansion at this point. Can you comment? Are you getting a lot of inbound calls there from othermarkets, potentially in Asia, asking you to put up newlines? Is there a pipeline of additional customers that are unmet by yourcurrent production?

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

Well, I think you laid out the answer here I would give to that. I mean, we have announced rightnow the build out of Malaysia, right, and the timing and our build out offurther capacity, right, we will be subject our evaluation of demand in themarket.

Jesse Pichel - PiperJaffray

Analyst

Do you have unmet demand at this point?

Bruce Sohn

Analyst

Yeah, Jesse, the way we look at this is around visibledemand over a time period that would repay investment in incremental capacityexpansions. So, if we said, today, in the short-term there is unmet demand--that'sreally not a justification in our minds to build additional productioncapacity. And so we create expansion windows--or investment windowswhere we would consider expanding--and as we come up to those windows, we lookat the question of whether there is multiple years of visible demand to takethe production from that plant, and that's the basis for a go-forward decision. So we don't really have to address it now, and we have ourhands full today, literally. But there will be another expansion window, orinvestment window, coming up in the future, and so the goal is to have thedemand secure to make an affirmative decision, and that's basically how weproceed.

Jesse Pichel - PiperJaffray

Analyst

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

At this time, that would conclude our question-and-answersession. We would like to thank everyone for your participation on today'sconference, and you may disconnect at this time.

Jens Meyerhoff

Management

Thank you very much.