Earnings Labs

First Solar, Inc. (FSLR)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Tue, Feb 26, 2013

$196.26

-0.62%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

David Brady

Management

James Hughes

Management

Mark Widmar

Management

Thanks Jim and good afternoon. Turning to slide 12, I’d like to begin by highlighting just a few key financial and operational accomplishments achieved during 2012. Beginning with costs, we made significant progress in driving down our total installed systems costs. We exceeded both our module manufacturing and our balance of system cost reduction target of 2012 compared to our December of 2011 announced guidance.On a cost per watt basis, full year module manufacturing costs, excluding our German manufacturing plant and un-utilization declined approximately 11% versus 2011 to $0.66. And our exit rate cost per watt for our best plant reached $0.64. On a year on year basis, we reduced average standard balance of system costs by approximately 14% to $0.73. These improvements are a direct result of our continued investment in research and development efforts to improve module conversion efficiency as well as improve engineering, procurement, and construction techniques and a constant focus on operational excellence.We have the financial strength to continue to invest in our technology which we believe has significant upside potential and we believe our cost reduction roadmaps are less reliant on raw material and procurement efficiencies that are crystal silicon competitors. Although we are encouraged by the steady progress of reducing costs, we remain focused on continuing to accelerate our efforts and consequently will provide new costs and efficiency roadmaps during our Analyst Day in early April.Looking at sales and operations. From a sales and operations perspective, we accomplished key milestones during 2012, including surpassing 7GW DC of cumulative module production, enough to provide clean electricity for approximately 3.5 million homes and displace 4.7 million metric tons of CO2 annually. During 2012, we surpassed 250MWAC of grid connected power at Agua, making it the world’s largest operational solar power plant.Lastly, as we worked diligently to…

Operator

Operator

Vishal Shah – Deutsche Bank:

James Hughes

Management

Operator

Operator

Stephen Chin – UBS Securities:

James Hughes

Management

Mark Widmar

Management

Stephen Chin – UBS Securities:

Mark Widmar

Management

Operator

Operator

Shahriar Pourreza – Citigroup Global Markets:

James Hughes

Management

Operator

Operator

Sanjay Shrestha - Lazard Capital Markets

Management

Mark Widmar

Management

Operator

Operator

Brian Lee - Goldman Sachs

Management

Mark Widmar

Management

Operator

Operator

Satya Kumar - Credit Suisse

Management

Mark Widmar

Management

Operator

Operator

Joseph Osha – Bank of America Merrill Lynch:

James Hughes

Management

Operator

Operator

Amir Rozwadowski – Barclays Capital:

James Hughes

Management

Mark Widmar

Management

Operator

Operator

Ben Schuman - Pacific Crest

Management

Mark Widmar

Management

Operator

Operator

Stephen Simko - Morningstar Equity Research

Management

James Hughes

Management

Operator

Operator

That does conclude our question-and-answer session at this time and that does conclude our conference call. Thank you everyone for your participation.