First Solar Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) reported third-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

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View the webcast at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/596409292

Summary

First Solar achieved approximately $1.2 billion in net sales for Q3 2026, with a gross margin of 58% and adjusted EBITDA of $744 million.

The company is advancing its manufacturing expansion, with Series 7 CURE replication beginning in India in early 2027 and a focus on U.S. manufacturing to benefit from a supportive trade environment.

First Solar’s backlog includes 44 gigawatts under contract, with significant bookings at 35 to 36 cents per watt. The company is shifting toward project-specific contracts for better allocation and delivery optimization.

Plans include strategic initiatives such as advancing perovskite R&D and securing technology licensing agreements to bolster its next-generation technology roadmap.

The company is considering the future of its Malaysia facility, with a decision on operations expected in the first half of 2027, while continuing to evaluate market conditions and trade policies.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Good afternoon and welcome to First Solar’s third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. This call is being webcast live on the Investors section of First Solar’s website at investor.firstsolar.com. All participants are in a listen-only mode, and please note that today’s call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Byron Jeffers, Head of Investor Relations.

Byron Jeffers (Head of Investor Relations)

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. With me today are Mark Whitmar, Chief Executive Officer, and Alex Bradley, Chief Financial Officer. Mark will begin with an update on the business, followed by Alex with our financial results and outlook. Before we begin, today’s discussion will include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties can be found in our earnings press release, other SEC filings, and the earnings material available on our Investor Relations website at investor.firstsolar.com. We undertake no obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events.

During today’s call, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are provided in our earnings press release and accompanying presentation. We encourage investors to review those reconciliations, as non-GAAP measures should not be considered in isolation or a substitute for financial information prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. With that, I’ll turn it over to Mark.

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you and good afternoon. Getting on slide 4, we continue to execute with discipline this past quarter, advancing our U.S. manufacturing expansion, CURE deployment, and perovskite R&D program while delivering strong financial results. We generated approximately $1.2 billion in net sales, expanded gross margin to approximately 58%, and delivered adjusted EBITDA of $744 million. Operationally, our continued CURE deployment across the fleet is being executed through a disciplined learning pace approach that began with our Perrysburg Series 6 conversion in Q1 of this year. That approach now extends to our first Series 7 conversion at our India facility, expected to begin in the first quarter of 2027, which marks the start of Series 7 CURE replication across the fleet. Beginning in India allows us to first refine the deployment process in a low earnings impact environment before replicating across our U.S. Series 7 fleet during the subsequent U.S. conversions.

Assuming a supportive trade environment, India front-end output is planned to be flexed to supply U.S. facilities, supporting U.S. back-end throughput and preserving partial domestic content and Section 45X eligibility during the transition. Accordingly, India’s finished good production in 2027 is expected to range from 2.2 gigawatts to 2.6 gigawatts. The pace and sequencing of subsequent Series 7 U.S. conversions will be informed by learnings from the India launch, consistent with the disciplined learning pace approach we have taken across all periods of technology transition.

In South Carolina, our Series 6 finishing facility is being brought online in two phases as part of an integrated manufacturing flow from Vietnam. The first phase started production in Q3. The second phase is expected to reach commercial launch in mid-2027. As we previously shared, we delayed the second phase by approximately a quarter so that the CURE could be incorporated at commercial launch. Together, these two phases are expected to result in 2027 South Carolina production of 2.2 to 2.5 gigawatts.

Beyond CURE, we continue to advance our next-generation technology roadmap. Our Ohio pilot line, designed to produce Series 6-size perovskite modules, remains on track to reach operational readiness in the first half of 2027. We expect this line will enable field deployment of modules to further capture learnings and validate the manufacturing performance and durability profile of this next-generation thin film technology before we undertake broader scaling decisions.

Our licensing agreement with Cubic PV announced earlier today, together with our previously announced intellectual property agreement with Oxford PV, continues to support the development roadmap, providing access to foundational perovskite IP as we advance our technology roadmap. Turning to the market environment on slide 5, the Section 232 proclamation issued in August represents a meaningful shift for U.S. solar manufacturing, and we believe First Solar is well positioned to benefit as this shift takes effect. Combined with fundamentals such as continued demand strength from load growth and data center expansions, we see a long-term opportunity to translate this position into earnings growth. Section 232 represents a structural change in how the United States approaches solar manufacturing.

As the U.S. competes for global leadership in artificial intelligence and the emerging low Earth orbit economy, secure and affordable power will be foundational to both. The country cannot afford to depend on adversarial nations for technologies and supply chains increasingly central to our long-term economic prosperity and national security. As a technology company and the only fully integrated utility-scale solar manufacturer without dependency on a Chinese crystalline silicon supply chain, we believe we are structurally positioned to benefit from this environment.

Note, by 2027 nearly 80% of our global module manufacturing footprint will be located in the U.S. Long-term demand fundamentals also remain strong. AI-related infrastructure, electrification, and the onshoring of U.S. manufacturing are driving significant load growth. These customers need large-scale power quickly, and solar plus storage remains one of the fastest and lowest-cost solutions. They are increasingly focused on availability, delivery certainty, bankable warranties, and supply chain security—attributes we have built our business around.

As it relates to bookings, we believe the market is working through a transition following the Section 232 announcement, with significant influence from other key factors. As a reminder, a substantial portion of our existing backlog is comprised of multi-year framework agreements that are intended to supply customers with projects in various stages of development. While entering into these types of agreements has historically driven significant additions to our backlog, they can also be more challenging for us to plan for and allocate against because of the inherent delivery timing uncertainty associated with projects in early stages of development.

Over the course of this year, while not closing the door on framework agreements with appropriate contractual protections, our customer engagements have shifted more towards project-specific contracting with defined projects and delivery schedules. From our perspective, the enhanced certainty surrounding project-specific contracts allows us to optimize module allocation and delivery, with a potential trade-off of slowing the pace of an extended multi-year contracted backlog.

At the same time, customers are focused on advancing mid- and late-stage projects where modules have already been secured, while deferring procurement on early-stage projects requiring delivery later in the decade. We see several factors driving this behavior, including increased NIMBYism among community residents and growing state and local government opposition. In addition, the overall inflationary environment, together with the continuously evolving tariff landscape, have challenged near-term project economics and require greater strategic planning on behalf of our development customers to address system cost increases unrelated to module pricing. As one example, in certain cases surging battery prices is challenging both projects in construction as well as projects at the PPA bid stage.

Lastly, an incomplete regulatory picture with regards to the final ITC guidance, as well as the potential for Section 232 tariffs to continue to evolve, particularly as it relates to minimum import prices and the effectiveness of anti-stocking measures, has generated volatility in the module procurement market and inhibited customer clarity as it relates to module pricing discovery. The impact of these current dynamics on recent bookings is most pronounced from our Malaysia facility. While Vietnam is expected to supply the semi-finished product for our South Carolina finishing facility, Malaysia retains the capacity to produce fully finished international modules. We continue to evaluate demand for this product based on core unit economics, tariffs and trade conditions, and customer contracting terms.

We expect the operating decision regarding our Malaysia facility to be binary, resulting in either operations at full or near full capacity of 1.8 gigawatts annually, or a shutdown of production, with that decision expected in the first half of 2027. Given Malaysia’s relatively small contribution to our manufacturing footprint, limited Series 6 blending opportunity in the U.S. absent Section 45X credits, and freight and tariff burdens, we do not expect either outcome to materially impact our run-rate earnings profile.

Against this backdrop, we remain deliberate on bookings, and we are pleased with the results of this approach. Through today, in the U.S., our largest market, we have booked approximately 4.9 gigawatts at approximately 35 to 36 cents per watt inclusive of adjusters. Moreover, our 44-gigawatt backlog gives us the ability to focus our contracting approaches on two strategic initiatives. First, we seek to improve pricing on new module sales relative to our current backlog ASPs.

Note, pricing will continue to vary by product—Series 6 and Series 7—and by U.S.- versus internationally made. Second, we seek to improve contract structures to further mitigate the risk of cost increases beyond our control, strengthen credit support and payment terms, and firm up product delivery schedules. Our objective is to optimize across both upfront ASPs as well as long-term earnings profile through disciplined pricing, appropriate contractual protections, strong counterparties, and alignment with our manufacturing and delivery strategy.

In summary, our focus on project-specific versus framework agreements, customer focus on near-term project execution versus late-dated procurement, evolving market price discovery, and our contracting discipline have moderated recent bookings on a volume basis but, on an economic basis, has generated improved pricing relative to our overall backlog. In addition, we remain focused on our ability to effect our contracting strategic initiatives and are confident in demand for our domestically produced product, particularly for 2020, 24.9 and beyond when we have available supply.

With that, I turn the call over to Alex to discuss our bookings, financial results, and outlook.

Alex Bradley (Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks, Mark. Turning to our bookings and backlog on Slide 6. We ended the quarter with 44 gigawatts under contract, representing approximately $13.5 billion contracted value exclusive of technology adjusters, with scheduled deliveries extending through 2030. Since our last earnings call, we recorded approximately 1.4 gigawatts of additional U.S. gross bookings at an average selling price of approximately $0.36 per watt, inclusive of applicable technology adjusters.

Importantly, substantially all of this volume was contracted or in late-stage negotiations and pricing and terms were largely set ahead of the Section 232 announcement. In addition, there remains approximately 4 gigawatts of variable volume associated with previously signed contracts not currently part of the contracted backlog but pricing reflective of the pre-Section 232 environment which our customers have the ability to exercise as of a date.

Approximately half of this volume has a decision date within the next five months with the other half spread across the remainder of 2027 and 2028. Should our customers elect to receive this volume, it will be recognized as incremental bookings at the time of such election. During the quarter, we also continued customer notifications related to contractual technology adjusters aligned with our production plan and intended deployment sequence. These notifications represent a meaningful source of incremental backlog value as CURE deployment advances across the fleet, with the majority of the adjusted value expected to be realized in 2027 and 2028.

With respect to adjuster-eligible volume, we would note that the ultimate realization of these adjustments is subject to the achievement of the underlying technology milestones, timing of future customer notifications and module delivery schedules, and other contractual conditions, and therefore the final value and timing may differ from the amounts and periods described. Of that potential adjusted value, approximately 20% is currently associated with 2027 deliveries, with the remainder weighted to 2028 and beyond.

As we continue to progress customer notifications associated with existing bookings tied to our CURE deployment sequence, together with new bookings removing the adjuster concept as we sell our CURE product with the technology embedded in the base ASP, the value of the adjusters will roll off over time. So, on to Slide 7. Net sales for the third quarter were approximately $1.2 billion, a decrease of approximately 23% year over year. The decrease was primarily driven by lower module volumes sold to third parties compared to the prior-year period. Gross margin was approximately 58%, up roughly 20 percentage points year over year. The year-over-year increase was driven primarily by a high mix of U.S.-produced margins. Gross margin also benefited from lower sales rate underutilization costs, tariffs and duties, partially offset by lower termination-related revenue.

Operating expenses were approximately $167 million. Research and development expense was approximately $67 million, reflecting continued investment in our technology roadmap including perovskite development. Net income was $571 million, up approximately 25% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA was $744 million, near the upper end of our previously communicated Q3 preview range, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 60%. Diluted earnings per share were $5.30 compared with $4.24 in the prior-year period.

Turn to our balance sheet and capital allocation on Slide 8. We ended the quarter with approximately $1.5 billion of net cash, remaining within our long-term target net cash range of $1.5 to $2 billion. Our balance sheet and projected cash generation continue to provide substantial financial flexibility. In February we laid out our approach to capital structure and capital allocation. This prioritized maintaining the aforementioned $1.5 to $2 billion of net cash to provide resiliency to cyclicality and industry volatility and to use additional cash to focus on growth, technology deployment, innovation, R&D technology roadmap advancements and M&A, especially related to complementary technology-adjacent opportunities. We further stated that we would evaluate applying cash generation in excess of the above capital priorities to share repurchases pending clarity around certain factors including policy catalysts, new bookings, volume and tax credit monetization.

In line with this approach and following the Section 232 proclamation issued in Q3, our board has authorized a share repurchase program of up to $500 million, effective immediately with no expiration date. This authorization reflects confidence in the long-term value of the business while preserving our disciplined approach to capital allocation and ability to continue investing in technology development and growth. Turning to Slide 9, our full-year 2026 guidance is updated to reflect a lower range of India domestic and international Series 6 and U.S. finishing volume sold, with an associated reduction in revenue and adjusted EBITDA. As we stated in our original guidance in February, we entered the year assuming our India facility would flex production as needed to match acceptably priced India-based demand in an inherently short book-to-bill cycle market. We’ve accordingly reduced our full-year India domestic volume sold forecast by approximately 0.7 gigawatts.

We also stated in February that we entered the year assuming limited in-year demand for our Series 6 international product, and bookings activity for 2026 deliveries has remained consistent with that assumption. While the low end of our total U.S. component volume sold forecast reflects a modest reduction based on reduced Series 6 WIP share products sold, our forecast range for fully domestic product sold remains unchanged. As we look forward to next year, subject to a supportive policy and trade environment, we expect to increase exports from our India facility to the U.S. market to optimize the margin potential from this factory.

As Mark discussed, we expect to make a decision on the long-term operating path for our Malaysia facility in the first half of 2027. Core operating expenses primarily increase as a function of increased legal spend associated with defending our TOPCon intellectual property position, which we believe has the potential to drive future revenue and earnings upside, and increased R&D spend on perovskite development. Note our full-year perovskite-related spend, originally forecast at approximately $100 million, is now expected to total approximately $120 million.

This is forecast to increase in 2027 as we seek to advance this next-generation advanced technology. Core OPEX increases were offset by a delay in certain startup expenses at our South Carolina facility, now expected in mid-2027, leaving our total 2026 operating expense guidance unchanged. Net cash guidance remains unchanged, with reduced cash inflows from volume sold offset by a reduction to forecasted capex. In summary, we remain well positioned as we close out 2026 and look forward to 2027, driven by a U.S. policy framework supporting true domestic manufacturing, continued load growth as the United States competes to lead in AI, and utility-scale solar’s ambition to meet the cost and speed-to-power requirements of a rapidly modernizing U.S. economy. These drivers align well with our 44 gigawatt contracted backlog for mostly nearer-term deliveries and greater module supply availability in the 2028 and beyond timeframe, which we expect to see further improvements in pricing and contractual terms relative to our existing backlog.

We continue to invest in our future, including our staged CURE technology replication across the fleet and increased perovskite spend in R&D, IP partnerships, and our Perrysburg pilot line. Our strong balance sheet allows us continued investment in the business while concurrently enabling capital return to shareholders. With that, operator, please open the line.

OPERATOR

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Please limit yourself to one question. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star-1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press Star-1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Moses Sutton with BNP Paribas.

Moses, your line is now open.

Moses Sutton (Analyst at BNP Paribas)

Thanks for taking that question, and thanks for all the color. Maybe you could elaborate on what seems like literally zero urgency for developers to book ’29 volumes. I sort of get the point on there’s NIMBYism, there’s project economics, there’s carrots. But we also hear from developers they expect to really do a lot of safe harbor volume in ’20—you know, panel prices will structurally go up 50%. They don’t have inventory that extends that far out, even if they do for the next two years.

So, sorry for the long question, but would there be a strategy change that’s necessary? Would you cut price to 34–35 cents and book the rest of the decade? It would seem there’s a little more urgency for ’29 than there used to be. Maybe to elaborate a little more, because we do still expect at least tens of gigawatts of TAM each year in ’29 and ’30.

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, look, I think the first thing I think we just need to maybe step back and reflect on is that everyone obviously is evaluating the execution against their development pipeline, and there’s near-term initiatives and areas of focus that they’re concentrating on right now. And disruptions at certain times, as we indicated, even as it relates to whether it’s battery costs or other component costs, or impact of tariffs that are swinging various projects around—people are all trying to work through that.

They’re trying to secure their financing. There’s still interconnection challenges that people are working through. And then probably the biggest issue that people are continuing to struggle with right now is just the challenges that are continuing to happen in local communities, even at the state level in particular from a government standpoint, and trying to push back on deployment of data centers, as we indicated, maybe as a comment that we had in our prepared remarks.

So there’s a lot that they’ve got going on right now. So engagements that we are having right now with customers—and we are starting to book a pipeline of opportunities that are going out into that horizon, and some even beyond ’29, going into ’30 and beyond as well—but everyone’s kind of like, I’ve got all these near-term things I’m focused on at this point in time; I’ve got to work through these, get everything addressed. They’re trying to digest the implications of what happens with the full implementation around 232.

People are still trying to think through, well, the guidance is going to come out sometime either later this year or beginning of next year. And so I think there’s clarity that everybody’s looking for at that point in time. So I think it’s just a matter of the timing of letting some of this work its way through and where their near-term priorities are to then think through the balance of the decade and what they still need to do. I mean everyone’s really concerned now with meeting their 48 safe harbor requirements, which these projects have to be safe harbored by and completed and commissioned by the end of 2028.

And there’s not as much focus going further out into the horizon, and that’s largely what we’re seeing from customers. Just a couple of other comments. So we said on the call that we were seeing this year challenges in near-term book-to-bill on our international volume, and if that ties into what we said before, we don’t want to be in the spot market. That’s a challenging place for us to be. But if you look at our contracted backlog, we’re still booked out a couple of years in advance. So when you talk about urgency around booking 2029, obviously we’d like to see bookings momentum, we’re open for business, but I don’t think we have a desperate urgency to be booking in that horizon right now.

And we also talked on the call in the prepared remarks around how we’re thinking about contracting, and we’re looking increasingly at individual projects versus large frameworks. And we’re happy to take framework deals with the right set of structural protections within them, but we’ve seen more and more customers actually looking at individual project deals and we’ve been looking at that. And generally speaking, that’s going to give you shorter-term visibility relative to 2029.

So if it’s trying to book specific deals, specific projects, the amount of clarity you have for 2029 is a lot less than if you were looking at framework horizons. So there’s that piece to factor in as well. And one thing I should have mentioned too, I think it’s just a really good example to highlight the dynamics that are going on right now. We were in negotiations with a customer for a 2 gigawatt procurement decision that was largely into final negotiations and documentation associated around the agreement. And the particular state that this project was being developed put a moratorium in place and the whole project stopped. Right. And this has happened after the announcement of the 232.

So, you know, customers are just uncertain. And when that level of uncertainty does happen, then they’re not going to be making commitments until they get better clarity.

Moses Sutton (Analyst at BNP Paribas)

Very helpful, thank you.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes in the line of Joseph Osha with Guggenheim. Joseph, your line is now open.

Joseph Osha (Analyst at Guggenheim)

Thanks very much. Following a little bit on Moses’s question, you know, Alex, you mentioned that bookings we’re seeing now reflect conversations that were undertaken prior to 232. Can you maybe give us a little bit of a preview on where conversations are landing for conversations that commenced post 232? Thank you.

Alex Bradley (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, maybe I’ll add a little bit of color around that. Since the announcement of 232, we have revised and increased our pricing. In some cases they were deals that were still in the early stage of negotiations, so we have increased pricing in those negotiations with customers. And if it’s a new opportunity that’s come in our way, that wasn’t even in any form of conversation prior to the 232, then those prices have gone up relative to what we would have been indicating previously.

We still have to work through all those issues, right? And I think anytime you get through here in an environment of rising prices, there’s a lot of price discovery that’s going to get done. You know, everyone’s going to go out and they want to evaluate all of their options and sort of discover where they think the pricing can be for different dynamics and whether they need the domestic content or how much of the domestic content from a point standpoint do they need.

You know, so they’re going to do a lot of heavy lifting to sort of figure out and triangulate what makes the most sense, partly because they also have to, in most cases, go back and get approval through their boards. And when you see a price point in the market that was there previously and now that price point has increased significantly, then everybody has to then sort of do their due diligence around that. So what I would say is the deals that, some of the deals that we have announced in this quarter were priced before the 232. In cases where we were in earlier negotiations with customers after the 232, we have looked to try to increase that, and then clearly any new opportunities that have kind of informed a more comprehensive view of what we think the pricing environment’s like today. But like I said, the price discovery is going to take a while before you’ll start to see that volume being executed.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes in the line of Philip Shen with Roth Capital. Philip, your line is now open.

Philip Shen (Analyst at Roth Capital)

Hey all, thanks for taking the questions. In terms of price, just to continue with the conversation, the price discovery may take some time. It sounds like you have 4 gigawatts of which maybe 2 gigawatts needs to be decided on in the next five months. And so just curious, what are we talking about now in terms of where pricing could go to? In the crystalline silicon world, we’ve quantified it as pricing has gone up 10 to 20 cents a watt, depending on the product and maybe timing, and so that’s a big move.

And I understand the price discovery kind of patience or timing that people need because they have to process kind of this upside shock to their economics. And so I was wondering if you can share with us a little bit of what you could book in the next quarter, and then what kind of price do you think you might get? Thanks.

Alex Bradley (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, Phil, the one thing on price too, I just want to make sure that we’ve highlighted this before. It does vary by, and we have it in our prepared remarks. I mean, the price for us for our Series 6 product is different than our Series 7 product. Our high domestic content product is different than a fully international, you know, imported module. So there’s going to be a distribution of what that pricing could look like. And so if I’m selling something that’s being imported from Malaysia, as an example, that’s going to be at the low end of that continuum.

And if I’m selling our Series 7 product that’s domestically manufactured here in the US, then that’s going to be at the high end. So there’s going to be a continuum around pricing. You know, as it relates to, we just announced again, I think another quarter at 36 cents or something like that since the last call — call to call, I think it was around 36 cents. And, you know, we have deals — that’s an average — we have deals that are above that, and that’s a momentum that we’d like to continue to carry forward. But, you know, I also want to be careful — we’ve got to put a marker out there with so much that still is fluid and still evolving.

I don’t want to give an indication of what that price realization could be. We’re just going to work to try to see how we can engage the market and capture the highest value relative to, you know, competitive alternatives. And if crystalline silicon stays in the range that you reference, then that gives us quite a bit of opportunity to improve pricing dynamics for our technology. But a lot of work still to go to get there.

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

So maybe just two other comments. As it relates to the volume that we already have that may get elected by customers, that’s going to range from somewhere close to the current backlog average to somewhere close to where we’re pricing now. So you’re going to see a variety in that, but it’s going to be between what we see historically and what we’re seeing currently. And then as you think about future pricing, crystalline silicon pricing is still most likely for deals in the next 12 to 24 months. And I don’t think there’s a good marker for that price point when you get out into the late ’28, ’29, ’30 timeframe, which is when we have most available product to sell. So one of the reasons I think customers are still doing price discovery is they don’t necessarily have a good benchmark that far out that’s reliable or trustworthy.

And so we’re still working through our pricing relative to where we think the market is and customers trying to understand our pricing relative to where they think that market point will be.

Alex Bradley (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, and I think the other point maybe I’ll highlight as well, Phil, is that, look, we still have a little bit of time before we get to full implementation on the 232. And what I will say is I’ve been very happy to hear the kind of enforcement focus that Commerce has to address stockpiling. The problem is there’s such an aggressive posture and risk-taking that people are willing to do in order to get a module into the US at some pre-232 MIP. And so we’re hearing a lot of stories of the extent people are going to in order to try to get product into the market, whether it’s at the cell level or whether it’s at the module level, and just aggressively pushing the envelope. And I know Commerce is doing a great job of trying to enforce that and to prevent that from happening and stopping that. But, you know, the onslaught of this stuff is coming from every angle.

And so I think there’s also that piece that people are waiting for — let’s let, you know, maybe there’ll be a lot more product that does make it into the market somehow. And a customer may say, I’m willing to wait and buy some time because maybe I can get an opportunity to get some pre-232 volume that’s been imported into the market at some crazily low price. And that’s informing their decision, or at least creating a willingness to wait. And, you know, we obviously are there to encourage Commerce to do whatever they can to ensure that enforcement of preventing that stockpiling.

But it’s not stopping the activities. You know, people are willing to take a lot of risk and it’s very aggressive, and we’ll have to see how effective Commerce could be. So far, you know, we applaud them for their efforts. There’s no doubt about that.

Philip Shen (Analyst at Roth Capital)

Yeah, so far they’ve blocked, I think we’ve learned about 60 importers blocked up until about two weeks ago, and that’s out of an importer count of, I think, 400. Pre-232 we learned that it was 200, and then post-232 that jumped up to 400. They’ve blocked at least close to 60, so looks like they’re working — the enforcement is pretty aggressive. Any thoughts on that? And then how much higher MIPs could go up and what kind of timing that could be?

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, I think on the enforcement, I mean, I don’t know if some of you may know that we did our ribbon cutting for our new factory in South Carolina and the secretary was there and a number of his key members of his team were there. So it gave us a great opportunity to talk with them and to sort of continue to emphasize the importance of this enforcement, and they’re 100% committed on the enforcement side and to do everything they can to prevent those types of things from happening.

And where we can, we are sharing insights with them and things we think could be helpful from that standpoint. It’s just, to your point, I mean, the risk tolerance that people are willing to take, knowing that there’s going to be that level of enforcement, is not slowing things down very much. I mean, yes, you can get 60 out of the, you know, if the number of importers of record went up from 200 to 400 and it’s great that we caught 60 of them, but that means there’s another 140 that potentially are still getting around the current enforcement levels, right.

So, and then as it relates to the MIPs, and look, I think it’s very clear, and if you haven’t seen Luckman’s remarks at our ribbon cutting, I think you just ought to watch it. There’s a couple of videos that are out there and he’s 100% clear on the strategic intent of what we’re trying to do here, which is to create US manufacturing, US jobs, US supply chain, US technology, and things that can help enable energy independence and national security.

And so they’re going to enforce this and they’re going to put the right requirements in place to ensure the domestic manufacturing can thrive and then put as many incentives as possible to encourage people to manufacture more here in the US, which I think is great.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Brian, your line is now open.

Brian Lee (Analyst at Goldman Sachs)

Hey guys, thanks for taking the questions. I know we’re kind of all dancing around the same topic, so I’ll try my best as well. But, you know, it sounds like you guys are moving from being a contract go-to-market strategy to more of a spot market go-to-market strategy, which, you know, I think most of your peers do and that was the case even for First Solar cycles ago. So, you know, maybe as you said, Mark, the bookings cadence moderates here with all the uncertainties, but the bookings cadence can potentially be more fluid on a quarter-to-quarter basis, I guess.

Is that fair and are you equipped, I guess from a salesforce perspective, to be able to manage through that? And then again, on the pricing entitlement side of things that you keep referring to, developers and all the uncertainties that they’re having to grapple with, I guess what are you tasking your sales force with in terms of this price discovery process post 232? I would imagine they’re not going to go anywhere lower than what you’ve been booking at recently, which is 36 cents. But, you know, is it a range of like 36 to 40, 40 cents plus? What are the puts and takes around what they’re going out to market with?

Thank you.

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah. So I think what we were trying to say, Brian, just as it relates to a lot of the deals that we announced going back three, four years ago, we built our contract backlog. A lot of these were multi-year framework agreements that had indicative delivery schedules associated with them. And then, as we said before, they had certain rights of annual shift rights or quarterly shift rights. Things could move around from that contracted schedule, but it wasn’t tied to a specific project.

And what’s happened when we do that is the volatility of our customers’ development pipeline, for various reasons, it just whipsaws stuff all over the place, right, in terms of, hey, this is what the contract was and now this is what the current requirements are given the state of their development portfolio and projects and what have you. And what we’re trying to do now a little bit—and not that we won’t get back to that; we’ve got a couple of very large deals where they’d be more of that legacy kind of framework agreements, strategic partnerships, and we’ll clearly do those—but near term what we’re seeing more is that everybody’s like, I’ve got a particular project and I want to negotiate this particular project.

And that gives us better clarity and certainty of the project: where it sits in its permitting process, where it sits in its interconnection process, where it is in its financing—if it’s approaching that—or at least we know what the timeline, the profile looks like, and it gives us better clarity of the timing of when the shipments need to occur. So that’s where the near-term focus is on that. But what I would say is that after this price discovery kind of gets better understood, I think we may see some customers moving in that other direction to say I really want to lock in and secure my project pipeline going out into ’29, ’30. And I said we have some customers that are even wanting to start having some conversations that go beyond 2030. So as it relates to the salesforce—as someone alluded to that—first off, from a capacity standpoint, I don’t think it’s an issue with our capabilities of our sales team to handle that pivot to more project-specific versus framework structures.

But as I somewhat alluded to, we have gone and we’ve repriced deals that were in the early negotiation phase, and any deals that have come to us now are obviously reflective of what we believe the current market pricing should be. So I’m not going to give you an indication of what that looks like, but we have recalibrated and I think the market fully understands that. But I also want to continue to go back: there is a continuum of what those prices are going to be in the near term, and I think I’ve even alluded to this in prior calls. What we have right now available to book is more, you know, Malaysia finished good module coming into the U.S. or an India product coming into the U.S. And so that profile, in terms of ASP entitlement, is going to be on the lower end of that continuum.

As I indicated, the lowest price point we would have for a module will be for that international product—fully finished international product—coming into the U.S., and then the highest will be kind of 100% domestically manufactured Series 7. So it can move around. That average is reflected in the numbers that we’ve been giving you, but at any particular quarter, if I’m heavy on maybe international modules coming to the U.S., that would drive that average ASP down and clearly we’ll provide color around that.

But, yeah, pricing is re-establishing itself at a higher point than it has been historically and we’ll continue to see how price discovery works through.

Alex Bradley (Chief Financial Officer)

Brian, just one follow-on point to that framework discussion, and one of the challenges that we’ve talked about over the last couple of years now is the period cost that we’ve been incurring around the amount of inventory we have to keep, the storage cost of that inventory, overall sales rate. If you think about when there’s an ability to move volume around, or when customers need to do that because the timing of their projects shift, I have to keep inventory to make sure I can service all the available contracts that I have.

So that generally means my overall inventory position is worse, my working capital position is worse. At the same time then, if that product all does move to the right from a schedule perspective, now I end up having to warehouse materially more volume than I expected. So generally speaking it’s become harder for us to plan around that and we’re seeing a significant financial impact from that. If we move to more of a project-based model where there’s a certainty around an individual project, the timing of that project, and delivery schedule, that allows me to plan on the operational side much more efficiently, reduce working capital, reduce storage costs as well. So it provides that operational financial efficiency that we’re looking for.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of John Wyndham with UBS. John, your line is now open.

John Wyndham (Analyst at UBS)

Hey, perfect. Mark and Alex, I appreciate you taking the questions. We’ll get onto the exciting topic of filing your taxes. So in the presentation you note there’s 1.9 billion of government grant receivables. My understanding is that’s payable two to three months after you file your annual returns. Can you just give us an indication of how your planning is for that cash actually going to your balance sheet and then into your bank account, and then any comments around the liquidity in the second-hand market if you were to decide to try to monetize those early.

Alex Bradley (Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks again. Yeah, so you’re right. On the balance sheet there’s about 1.9 billion. About 100 of that’s related to India. So you’ve got about 1.8 in the U.S., and then part of that 1.8 relates to credits that were generated last year. And we’ve yet to file. Yet. We have just filed our tax return, but yet to receive refundability for those. But if you look at this year’s credit generation, the forecast is about 2.1 billion of credit to be generated this year. If you look at the 2024 credits, we sold most of those. We did keep a portion of them and filed our 2025 tax return in October of 2025, and we received a refund for what was about 120 million in about three months’ time. And importantly, even within that three months, the government was actually shut down for about a month of that.

So the turnaround time from filing to receiving the cash relatively short. As it relates to this year, we haven’t made a decision yet. We’ve not made any assumption around a reduction in the carrying value of those credits if we were to sell them. We’ve seen that the market through the first half of this year I think was a little softer for credit sale values. That’s picked up pretty significantly towards the back end of the year as large corporates just have better position and understanding of their tax position coming into year-end and looking for tax planning strategies.

So we’re seeing a lot more outreach and interest around those credits. We’re in some discussions around potential sales there, but we’ll look to balance how much we would like to sell to pull some liquidity forward versus how much we’re comfortable filing for refundability for, because then you’re not taking a discount on that sale. So it’s a balancing act and we’re in discussions around those at the moment.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of David Arcaro with Morgan Stanley. David, your line is now open.

David Arcaro (Analyst at Morgan Stanley)

Well, hey, thanks so much for taking my questions. I was wondering, with the shift toward individual project booking, typically, you know, what’s the time frame for how far in advance you would end up getting that order into your backlog, relative to, I guess, the timing of the project? And I think you had suggested that the decision on Malaysia could be made in the first half of 2027. Are you thinking that we’ll get enough kind of visibility by that time that you’ll be able to make that call on what to do with that capacity?

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, I’ll take the first one. I’ll let Alex take the Malaysia comment. So, yeah, basically what happens if you’re bidding specific to a project, modules are usually at the forefront of your procurement-led decision. You want to secure that technology because it also drives your design of the factory — or the design of the project, excuse me. So, you know, crystalline silicon and cad-tel will design your factory and your plant, excuse me, differently.

There’s different string count, different voltage, and other parameters you would want to optimize for. Generally we don’t have the same constraints as it relates to the tracking/backtracking requirements because we don’t deal with the same adverse impact of shade or diffuse light and those types of things. So there’s a lot that has to be done early on, and you’re going to want to source that module and lock that up so you can be unencumbered to figure out how you want to design and optimize at the project level.

So it could be, you know, 18 months, two years before the first delivery would start to happen, or at least for sure until the project would be commissioned. So it shortens your timeline a little bit from a visibility standpoint, but it doesn’t really significantly shorten it. But it gives you better certainty, there’s no doubt about that. You know, people would be willing to go out into 2030 in a framework kind of construct, and projects normally would be commitments that would go out into, you know, ’28 or into early ’29 is probably about as far out as they would want to go, but still more than enough visibility to properly understand the project and price it appropriately.

Alex Bradley (Chief Financial Officer)

And David, as it relates to Malaysia, yeah, I do believe we’ll have enough visibility going into the first half next year. We’ve effectively been carrying that asset running at very low throughput for the whole of this year. And we’ve done that deliberately. We could talk — the underutilization costs associated with that was worth the option value of having the ability to run what would be up to about 1.8 gigawatts of international volume. As we look through the 232 announcement, as Mark said, the customer base is still in a transition, fully understanding what that looks like and trying to work through what their need is going to be.

We want to make sure we have the optionality in Malaysia in the event that that significant demand does materialize. We’ve also said that we have an order of how we want to make sure our factories sell. So first we look to make sure our U.S. content is sold. Secondly, we look to make sure we’re selling our finishing line production out of our new facility in South Carolina, and then after that the full international product. We’re also going to be bringing more volume from India over into the U.S. next year, subject to a trade and tariff environment that makes sense.

So I think we’ll have the understanding of the marketplace that we’ll need by the first half of next year, and we’re still looking at that as an option value and seeing how the effect of the 232 plays out.

OPERATOR

Your next question comes from the line of Vikram Bagri with Citi. Vikram, your line is now open.

Vikram Bagri (Analyst at Citi)

Good evening, everyone. Apologize for another question on pricing, but this is important. On this call itself, we’ve heard pricing either go down by a couple of cents or go up by 20 cents. Mark, fully appreciate the lack of clarity about the environment. But for Series 7, is there a construct you can provide for pricing that we should keep in mind? So if pricing for silicon-based panels moves higher, we should assume a certain discount to that which some people will characterize as quality discount.

And I imagine pricing also depends on several other factors — project and contractors. But all else being equal, is there a construct where, if pricing for silicon-based panels moves higher than $0.40 or $0.45, we should assume a certain fixed discount for U.S. Series 7? And then related to that, Mark, you talked about a number of items limiting ability of developers to make long-term plans. Is competition in panel manufacturing also one of the factors which is sort of prohibiting them from committing to the supply of panels? Do you think the lack of urgency to book 2029 is also a function of new capacity coming online potentially in the U.S. from other suppliers of panels? Or how do you see the competition evolve over the next couple of years in the sector?

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

Thank you. Yeah, so I’ll talk on. So if you take Series 7 as an example — and just one thing to make clear, you made a comment about a quality discount. I don’t know if you’re familiar with how energy predictions are done for crystalline silicon technology. They actually have a quality factor that they use which basically reduces the energy profile of the technology as part of the energy prediction, which does not apply at all to First Solar technology.

So we don’t have any quality factors that are assumed in the energy predictions that are underwritten by, supported by, the IES and the banks. So I’m not sure what your point is around that. But crystalline silicon clearly does — they have a meaningful quality factor that is being used when they do the energy prediction for that technology. What I would say, if you take a Series 7 CuRe product and you compare it from an energy profile — because, again, energy is what our customers pay for and what the value of that product would be — relative to a PERC technology, it would be advantaged to PERC, so there’d be no discount to PERC. It would also vary with where it is, because obviously our technology does not have — cure will have better bifaciality than our CuRe product; our bifaciality is lower than crystalline silicon.

So if you were to go further Northeast where you get a better impact of bifaciality, then you’ll see a different outcome. If you go to the desert Southwest or to the Southeast and more hot and humid climates, you’re going to see a better outcome for our technology. And then if you compare us to TOPCon — which, again, the vast majority of anyone producing or selling any TOPCon product in the U.S. is an infringing IP, which we will stand by and completely enforce — then you’ll have a slightly different outcome.

We would actually be, on average, slightly disadvantaged to TOPCon by a few pennies. So it depends. I mean, you’ve got different situations, different geographies, different terrains — a lot of different things factor into that and determine the relative competitiveness of the technology. But I would say, general rule of thumb: Series 7 CuRe is going to be advantaged against PERC and disadvantaged by pennies relative to TOPCon. As it relates to the competition and how that all plays out, you have to think through how much are you willing — first off, is the competition and the manufacturing that’s coming into the U.S. truly FEOC-free, truly unencumbered by any dependency from the Chinese, whether it’s the supply chain, whether it’s the tools and the manufacturing equipment, whether it’s the IP? A lot of our customers do their own subjective analysis and have concluded that there’s a substantial risk, still, that these entities are not FEOC-free and they don’t want to take on that risk.

That puts us in a much better position, there’s no doubt about that. And that’s also why I think you’re going to find customers leaning into developing partnerships with First Solar that go longer-dated. I believe I remember reading one of the filings recently for one of the U.S. manufacturers, and I believe almost 100% of the sales that they’re generating this year is to a related party, and I understand that related party to be a Chinese counterparty.

So, I mean, it tells you — just looking at that as an example — that, you know, in certain situations customers are not willing to take on that risk. And we still don’t have full clarity around FEOC yet, and I think that’s why people are being a little gun-shy.

OPERATOR

Our final question comes from the line of Dimple Gosai with Piper Sandler. Dimple, your line is now open.

Dimple Gosai (Analyst at Piper Sandler)

Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone. My question is regarding just December 4th in terms of outcomes and what you’re hearing. I mean, there’s been a lot of news recently. T1 recently filed for a waiver around cell imports. We’re hearing a lot about lobbying for exclusions, and we also know utilities are pretty price sensitive here. So, are we, in your view — is there risk to the upside or downside, just in terms of the outcome there? And then separately, just kind of talking about some of the news that we’re hearing about, there’s also news on the Swift Current lawsuit that’s been in the news. Is there anything you can speak about here? Is there any merit to that? Is there a size associated with it, and any merit, really? Thank you.

Mark Whitmar (Chief Executive Officer)

As it relates to the exclusions. Look, I do believe because, again, the program’s intent and motivation is to try to ensure manufacturing here, reshoring of manufacturing, true manufacturing, truly unencumbered by Chinese or adversarial countries’ dependencies. Each one of those will be determined on a circumstances basis and worked through with Commerce to say, is there true substance to this? And then, in general, the focus with Commerce is to limit the period of time which that exclusion would be provided.

I don’t stay on top of it. I don’t know. My team may have better insights than I do in terms of, have any exclusions been granted at this point in time? It’s not clear to me that there have been any granted exclusions. I know there’s been some representation of statements that have been made, but I don’t believe there’s any actual exclusions that have been communicated publicly at this point in time. But that’s something that we’re going to have to stay close to and understand.

I’m perfectly fine, though, competing. You know, we’ve always said, you know, U.S. manufacturing on a level playing field. First Solar is more than happy to compete on our own merits and our technology and the competitiveness of our manufacturing process and our supply chain. So if some of that does happen, then it’ll evolve and that’ll create the domestic industry that I do believe still is a strategic thread that’s important for us as a country, assuming we do it right, assuming it truly is U.S. technology, U.S. manufacturing, U.S. supply chains creating U.S. jobs and supporting American families.

There’s no doubt about that. That’s absolutely critical from that standpoint. As it relates to the lawsuit, I really can’t comment much of anything around that. We actually will be filing our response here shortly per the required timeline, and I think there’ll be better clarity around the issues and the allegations that have been raised during that, as part of that lawsuit. What I will say is that we have always, and even with engagement with Swift, we’ve always said we will stand by and we will support, under the parameters of our limited liability warranty, the obligations that we have.

Again, that largely is reflective of and relates to the Series 7 initial product launch, that we had indicated that there were a couple of issues that came out as part of that launch that resulted in an initial stabilization of that technology to be below expectations. And then, underneath that program we put in place, we said we would remedy those issues with customers, and we engaged even with Swift to have that conversation. I think where the challenge comes in is where people are asking for remedies that are outside the parameters of the warranty, and that’s just, you know, that’s not something that we will do, but we will be more than, you know, we’ll stand behind the technology. And we had that conversation with Swift in this case, and they chose to try to pursue a different approach where they think they could be successful. And again, you should see our response in our filing coming out here in the next several weeks.

OPERATOR

We have reached the end of the Q and A session. This concludes today’s call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

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