SunPower Corp. announced that revenue for the first quarter ended April 2, 2006, was $42.0 million, up 43% from the prior quarter's revenue of $29.3 million and up 278% from the year-ago first quarter revenue of $11.1 million. GAAP net income for the quarter was $0.3 million, or breakeven net income per share, compared to last quarter's net loss of $0.6 million or $0.01 loss per share and the year-ago first quarter net loss of $7.2 million.
On a non-GAAP basis, excluding amortization of intangible assets and stock-based compensation, the first quarter net income was $2.8 million or diluted earnings per share of $0.04, compared to the prior quarter's net income of $1.5 million and the year-ago first quarter net loss of $6.1 million.
Tom Werner, SunPower CEO, said "We are pleased to report another solid quarter of operational results ahead of our announced objectives as well as a number of achievements that extend our leadership in the technology arena.
"We continue to expand SunPower's manufacturing capacity ahead of plan," added Werner. "Our newest production line, Line 3, was turned on during the first quarter and has already exceeded its design-yield objectives. This was an important achievement since Line 3 exclusively runs our new thinner 190-micron wafers. We are seeing the critical-mass benefits of our highly skilled work force and disciplined operating systems that together enable the rapid transfer of learning to our newer lines. We expect that this incremental capacity will allow us to achieve another significant quarter-on-quarter top-line revenue increase to $50- to $52 million for Q2, with expected, diluted non-GAAP net income of share of $0.05 to $0.07.
"We are on plan to install Line 4 at SPML in the fourth quarter of this year, and are pleased to announce that we have already made 22% solar cells using the Gen 2 technology that we plan to utilize on Line 4," continued Werner. "We expect that the 10% higher relative efficiency of Gen 2 technology together with thinner wafers will allow SunPower to further improve our silicon utilization efficiency on Line 4 to less than 7 grams of polysilicon raw material per watt of solar power.
"Early achievement of these manufacturing and technology milestones gives us the confidence to increase our 2006 top-line minimum revenue guidance from $210 million to $220 million," Werner said.
