US cadmium telluride thin-film solar manufacturer First Solar has announced net sales of US$1.7 billion for the fourth quarter of 2025, driving full-year sales of US$5.2 billion.
These year-end sales figures are US$1 billion higher than in 2024, and the fourth quarter sales are an increase of US$0.1 billion over the third quarter sales figures. This drove a gross profit of US$665.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 and a gross profit of US$2.1 billion for the whole year, both of which are improvements over the same period of the prior year.
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The company attributed its year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter sales growth to “a 24% increase in third-party module volume”, and this growth coincides with a slight uptick in the company’s own module production.
According to the investor presentation released alongside the results, the company produced 16.1GW of solar PV modules in 2025, a record high for the company; First Solar’s historical module production is shown, by quarter, in the graph below.
The majority of this production is concentrated in the US, which was responsible for 10GW of production, compared to 2.8GW from India and 3.3GW from the rest of the world. First Solar expects its Indian module production to remain fairly consistent in the coming years—between 2.6GW and 2.8GW in 2026 and between 2.4GW and 2.6GW in 2027.
The company’s guidance, however, does account for the imposition of Section 122 tariffs at 15%, which can be imposed by the president on all goods for 150 days without the approval of Congress, although it is not known whether, or when, Trump will impose these tariffs in particular. First Solar noted that it expects tariffs to increase the cost of imported components on its bill of materials from US$120 million to US$130 million, while increasing the cost of imported finished modules from US$35 million to US$45 million.
The company expects its US module production, meanwhile, to increase in the coming years, aiming for up to 13.3GW of module output in 2026 and 16.1GW in 2027. This follows the start of operations at a 3.5GW module manufacturing plant in Louisiana last November, and CEO Mark Widmar said that the building of new US manufacturing facilities has been a key part of the company’s “growth journey”. Last November, the company selected South Carolina for the construction of a new facility with a 3.7GW annual nameplate capacity.
“As we navigated a rapidly evolving environment, we maintained a disciplined approach to contracting and remained anchored in our core principle of pricing and delivery certainty, a key differentiator that our customers value,” added Widmar.
This “rapidly evolving environment” likely refers to the US policy landscape, which has seen significant disruption during the second Trump administration. Over the summer, First Solar said that these policies had “strengthened” its position, a rare expression of optimism in the present US solar sector.
Looking ahead, First Solar expects 2026 to be a year of relative stability, aiming for 17GW to 18.2GW of module production, to drive sales of between US$4.9 billion and US$5.2 billion. The company expects its operating expenses, meanwhile, to tick upwards, from US$523.5 million in 2025 to between US$610 million US$635 million.
