Energy Conversion Devices' Solar Thin-Film Business Posts Quarterly Loss

By Ucilia Wang

Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) saw a revenue decline and a flat net loss for its first fiscal quarter of 2010 that ended Sept. 30, the company said Monday.

Rochester Hills, Mich.-based ECD, whose primary business is to manufacturer amorphous-silicon thin films through its subsidiary, United Solar Ovonic, reported $42.9 million for the first fiscal quarter, a 55 percent drop from $95.8 million in the year-ago period. In the fourth fiscal quarter of 2009, the company generated 51.4 million in revenue.

Net loss in the first fiscal quarter reached $11.8 million, or 28 cents per share, compared with a net income of $11. 8 million, or 27 cents per share, from a year ago. ECD posted a net loss of $17.6 million, or 41 cents per share, in the fourth fiscal quarter.

The company was able to turn a profit for the first two fiscal quarters of 2009. But the recession, and in particularly its impact on the roofing material market, has hit ECD hard, the company said.

The company markets its products as a thin and flexible alternative to conventional glass-covered solar panels for residential and commercial rooftops. The thin films aren't as efficient at converting sunlight into electricity, however.

ECD is facing more competition these days. More companies are now building flexible thin films with higher efficiencies, and they also are marketing products to roofing material makers and distributors.

Dow Chemical (DOW), for one, plans to launch roofing shingles embedded with Global Solar Energy's copper-indium-gallium-selenide cells next year.

ECD's shares fell about 3.5 percent to reach $11.1 per share in recent trading.

Comments

[Zenfar:]

Shingles?

Nov 09 04:13 PM

[jerrydd:]

Anyone investing in ECD is going to lose. They make low quality products and not much of them because after someone buys some, they never buy them again.Most of what they produce is PR's and hype.

Mostly they make money from investors and gov grants and haven't made much real profit in the 30 yrs of various scams they have ran.

Nov 10 09:44 AM