US solar tracker manufacturer FTC Solar has withdrawn its guidance for the year and warned of material uncertainties caused by the US AD/CVD investigation.
FTC Solar CEO Sean Hunkler said that market conditions in the US were “increasingly uncertain in the wake of the AD/CVD investigation”.
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“While customers increasingly value our solutions and service and want us to be ready to execute on projects quickly, the investigation has added to existing WRO and module pricing concerns to compound customers’ difficulties in procuring solar modules. This, in turn, is causing project decisions and schedules to continue to get pushed out in time,” he added.
As a result, FTC said it was withdrawing its 2022 full year guidance and was moving back to providing quarterly guidance with only qualitative discussion beyond that.
In guidance for Q2 2022, FTC has forecasted for revenue in the US$30 – 35 million range which it said reflected project delays and other uncertainties within the US market.
Results for the first quarter of the year showed revenue at US$49.6 million, a 32.6% decrease year-on-year and short of its previous guidance of US$55 – 60 million due to a lower volume and lower average selling price compared to the previous quarter.
Furthermore, the business slipped to a net loss of US$27.7 million in Q1 2022, compared with the loss of US$7.4 million the year before. There is a similar outlook for next quarter with non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA losses ranging between US$19.7-16.7 million.
There was however better news for FTC’s longer term prospects, with the manufacturer taking its pipeline to a new record high of 32GW, primarily attributed to strong growth outside of its native US market.
Those numbers exclude the pending acquisition of Chinese tracker company HX Tracker, which remains on track to complete in the second quarter of the firm’s financial year and will serve to “further accelerate” FTC Solar’s international expansion.
