Wednesday, January 11, 2017 12:33:51 PM
Thank you for the opinion on progress updates. I felt like MGMT was sandbagging the delivery timeline in the November meeting to provide themselves with a cushion so they can beat expectations (and to not tip their hand to CN competitors. You can't really keep secrets on crystaline side of things because there are so many players using similar tools.
I think FSLR definitely has a window of opportunity to shine with a really low cost / high efficiency product but that window is not as large as I previously thought it was. I think the need to prove they can make Series 6 in volume and at high efficiency as quickly as possible so they can start safely selling product on a foward basis and lock up enough demand to justify capacity expansions. They cannot remain a 3GW or even 5GW player in order to compete the Chinese giants. Those giants are now at 5-7 GW/year and my guess is that after some consolidation they are going to be 10+ GW and eventually even higher. FSLR needs a platform where they can realistically sell 7-10 GW/year or more and then they will be spreading their R&D over a much more reasonable level of business.
I think MGMT knows this clearly and knew that Series 4/5 was not the platform for that kind of expansion. There are benefits to being conservative but also risks. If they give up too much market share it will be harder to expand and keep up with the Chinese majors.
I know, one step at a time...
I also think that Mgmt should consider bringing in some strategic high profile partners / investors once they have a proven Series 6 product. There are countries with sovereign wealth funds that need to deploy capital and would like to be involved in clean energy.
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