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Last quarter was again better than the one before for stock market darling First Solar. Net income rose to $164.60 million, up from $46.62 million for the first quarter of 2008, while net sales jumped to $418.21 million from $196.92 million compared with the same quarter a year ago. Although the market showed signs of oversupply as forecast at Solarplaza's 2007 Global Demand Conference, First Solar has not been hit by any downturn. Last month First Solar announced it had hit the milestone of having produced 1 GW of thin-film solar modules since it started commercial production back in 2002. A month earlier, First Solar took over the project pipeline of 550 MW to supply PG&E with solar power worth $400 million from the elusive Opti-Solar.
First Solar is currently the way to go for larger projects, and even rooftop applications opt for First Solar as shown by the recent deal with SolarCity. Will this solar mammoth be able to get its costs and, more importantly, its sales price down fast enough to stay ahead of the curve?
The CEOs of Q-Cells and Suntech Power, the President of First Solar, the CTOs of Centrotherm and Applied Materials, and other experts will discuss The Solar Future
at the international solar expert and CEO Conference on 26 May in Munich.
More information: www.thesolarfuture.com
