Applied Materials' Solar Biz Has Sunny Outlook

Because the thin-film business is new, the company doesn’t expect to profit from its SunFab line until the second half of fiscal 2009, Davis said.

Applied Materials, which released its earnings after the market closed, saw its shares increase 4.71 percent to reach $19.34 per share in after-market trading. The stock price closed up 0.05 percent at 18.47 per share.

Several other greentech companies also released earnings on Tuesday:

JA Solar (NSDQ: JASO)
JA Solar (NSDQ: JASO) shares grew 3 percent to $15.40 per share Tuesday even after the company posted a per-share loss.

The Chinese solar-cell manufacturer reported a second-quarter net income of 318.6 million yuan ($46.4 million), compared to 75.7 million yuan ($11 million) in the year-ago quarter. After adjusting for some one-time items, such as interest expenses and foreign currency gains, that amounted to a diluted net loss of 7 million yuan ($1 million), or 0.04 yuan (1 cent) per share, compared to an income of 0.54 yuan (8 cents) per share for the second quarter of 2007.

But excluding additional items, such as stock-based compensation, JA Solar reported an income of 0.99 yuan, or 14 cents, compared to 0.63 yuan, or 9 cents, for the same period last year. Analysts had expected earnings of 15 cents per share on revenue of $170.4 million, according to Thomson Financial.

JA Solar beat revenue expectations, posting revenue of 1.24 billion yuan ($180.3 million) for the quarter, compared with 457 million yuan ($66.6 million) last year.

Lazard Capital Markets analyst Sanjay Shrestha described the quarter as “solid,” while Piper Jaffray analyst Jesse Pichel characterized the operating results as “strong.” Both said the results were “masked” by some accounting items.

Investor attitude has apparently changed toward JA Solar. In the third quarter of last year, the company experienced falling shares even after beating earnings expectations (see JA Solar Gets No Reward From Investors).

Comverge (NSDQ: COMV)
Comverge (NSDQ: COMV), a demand-response company based in East Hanover, N.J., on Tuesday posted a second-quarter loss that more than doubled to $9.6 million, or 45 cents per share, from $4.4 million, or 29 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter

The loss came in spite of revenue that also more than doubled to $9.5 million from $4.6 million last year.

Analysts had expected a loss of 38 cents per share on revenue of $13.4 million, according to Thomson Financial.

The company said about $3 million in revenue “with solar gross margins” that it had expected to receive in the second quarter will end up being included in the third-quarter revenue instead because of a customer audit delay.

Comverge also warned that a regulatory change that grid operator PJM put into place in the first quarter would reduce its full-year revenue. It lowered its full-year guidance to between $80 million and $90 million, from a previous forecast of between $95 million and $105 million.

Shares of Comverge fell 26.7 percent to $6.55 per share Tuesday.

Other smart-grid companies reported better-than-expected quarterly results earlier this month (see Smart Grid Sales on the Rise and Sharp, SolarWorld, Wacker, Itron Beat Quarterly Expectations).

Metabolix (NSDQ: MBLX)
Metabolix (NSDQ: MBLX), a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech company, on Tuesday posted a second-quarter net loss that widened 15.6 percent from the year-ago quarter.

The company reported a loss of $8.9 million, or 39 cents per share, compared to a net loss of $7.7 million, or 35 cents per share, in the second quarter of 2007.

Analysts expected a loss of 38 cents per share, according to Thomson Financial.

Second-quarter revenue, which included government grants, more than doubled to $401,000 from $187,000 last year.

But the company spent more on research and development – $6 million compared to $5 million in the year-ago quarter.

The earnings come a day after Metabolix announced it had engineered switchgrass plants that produce a bioplastic.

Metabolix shares grew 1.9 percent to $12.49 per share Tuesday, but fell 3.6 percent to $12.04 per share in after hours trading.