Israel headquartered solar inverters and power optimizers manufacturer SolarEdge Technologies, Inc. has reported, what the management termed as record revenues in both its solar and non-solar businesses for Q2/2021 with total revenues adding up to $480.1 million. Its solar segment has contributed the major share, $431.5 million to the total.
This is a YoY improvement of 45% over the previous year (see SolarEdge Q2/2020 Net Income Grows 11% YoY). On QoQ basis too, the quarterly revenues went up 18% with solar segment revenues growing 15% during the same period; this does not include residential battery shipments.
GAAP gross margin for the group was 32.5%, and for the solar segment it was 37.4%. The company confirmed that the solar segment gross margin was affected by close to 150 basis points by higher logistic costs, due to high freight costs.
Geographic distribution
In Q2/2021, SolarEdge shipped 1.64 GW AC of inverters capacity (Q1/2021: 1.69 GWAC) out of which 745 MW was shipped to Europe which accounted for 46.5% of its total revenues with record revenues from the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Austria and Switzerland. To the US, it shipped 580 MW capacity taking the country's revenue share to 40.6%. The remaining 12.9% revenue came from 319 MW it shipped to the rest of the world.
SolarEdge's Top 10 solar customers brought in 61.4% revenues for the company in Q2/2021, and out of those 2 US customers accounted for more than 10% of the company's solar revenues.
Management confirmed that while the pricing environment which it experienced in Q1/2021, remained stable in the reporting quarter, it has informed customers of a 'modest price increase to support increased freight expenses'.
One highlight of the quarter was that SolarEdge signed a 1 GWh of cell supply with Samsung SDI to meet the 'strong demand' of its batteries. Samsung SDI will complete the supply in 2022. Philip Shen of Roth Capital Partners opined, "Overall, we expect higher expectations for solar growth as well as storage shipments into 2022 to support estimates moving higher." He said, "while Q3 storage volume expectations of 25-30MWh were below our forecast of 45MWh, SEDG's 1GWh supply agreement with Samsung suggests our prior forecast for 380MWh of storage shipments in2022 was too low. SEDG also expects to be ramping the 2GWh Sella 2 battery factory in Korea, which would provide even more storage volume."
Guidance
For the upcoming quarter Q3/2021, SolarEdge is more hopeful with revenue guidance provided between $520 million to $540 million and non-GAAP gross margin of 32% to 34%. To this revenue range, the solar segment is expected to contribute between $460 million to $480 million with a gross margin of 35% to 37%.
Shipments in Q3/2021 are likely to comprise 25 MWh to 30 MWh of residential storage systems to the US and Europe.
Praising the company for managing through higher input costs well, including freight, with price increases expected ahead, Shen added, "We believe the strong Q3 guide for solar shipments could drive expectations for growth into 2022 higher and estimates could move upward."
SolarEdge's peer in the US, Enphase Energy had to bear higher component costs in Q2/2021, and sees supply chain issues to persist in Q3/2021 (see Enphase Energy's Q2/2021 Revenues Grew To $316 Million).
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