By Dharna Bafna
(Reuters) -First Solar beat expectations for third-quarter sales on Thursday, driven by robust demand for its products, sending its shares up more than 5% in extended trading.
Solar-generated electricity is one of the fastest-growing segments of the U.S. energy industry, driven by strong demand from corporations and governments to adopt cleaner sources of power and combat climate change.
The company said it would establish a new 3.7 GW production facility in the U.S., with production expected
to start at the end of 2026 and ramp up through the first half of 2027.
The company reported a profit of $455.9 million, or $4.24 per share, for the third quarter, up from $341.87 million, or $3.18 per share, a year earlier.
However, the company, which is also grappling with the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's trade policies, lowered its current-year sales forecast.
It now expects annual sales to be between $4.95 billion and $5.2 billion in 2025, compared with its prior view of $4.9 billion to $5.7 billion.
The change in forecast reflects "reduced international volumes sold due to customer terminations, partially offset by termination payments", the company said on a conference call.
The firm in a regulatory filing revealed it had to terminate various master supply agreements with a major oil and gas customer. This reduced First Solar's backlog of solar modules by 6.6 Gigawatts (GW) at a total transaction price of $1.9 billion.
First Solar also lowered the top end of its forecast range for volumes sold to 17.4 GW from 19.3 GW, while keeping the low end unchanged at 16.7 GW.
The company reported net sales of $1.6 billion for the three months ended September 30, above analysts' estimates of $1.56 billion, as per data compiled by LSEG.
(Reporting by Dharna Bafna in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
