SolarCity Shares Plunge 9% On Weak Outlook, Q2 Loss Flat

(RTTNews) - Shares of SolarCity Corp. (SCTY) plunged more than ten percent in extended trading on Wednesday after the clean energy distributor revealed that third quarter loss will come in wider than Street view.

The company also reported a loss for the second quarter that was relatively flat with last year, while earnings per share plunged as the year-ago quarter had significantly lower share count. However, loss per share for the quarter came in narrower than analysts' expectations and quarterly revenues also topped their estimates.

SolarCity noted that it continued to make progress in building out its platform for delivering cleaner and cheaper distributed energy in the second quarter.

"SolarCity delivered solid growth in its operating lease business in the second quarter, with cumulative customers, cumulative energy contracts, and estimated nominal contracted payments all close to doubling from the end of Q2 2012, while the momentum continued with a record month in residential bookings and deployments in July," CEO Lyndon Rive said in a statement.

The San Mateo, California-based company reported a net loss of $23.89 million or $0.31 per share for the second quarter, compared to $25.83 million or $2.37 per share in the prior-year quarter, which had a sharply lower share count.

On average, six analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report a loss of $0.38 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Revenues for the quarter declined 19 percent to $37.95 million from $46.57 million in the same quarter last year, but topped six Wall Street analysts' consensus estimates of $27.44 million.

Operating lease revenues surged 79 percent to $20.6 million from $11.5 million last year, but solar energy systems sales revenue declined from last year.

Residential megawatts (MWs) deployed soared 144 percent from last year to 44 MW to drive total MW deployments to the highest quarterly rate yet at 53 MW. MWs booked totaled 69 MW.

New customers increased to 8,559 from 5,200 a year ago leading to cumulative customer growth of 97 percent to 64,411 from last year.

Gross profit for the quarter increased to $15.48 million from $10.97 million in the year-ago quarter. Total operating expenses were $42.52 million, higher than $26.49 million, largely owing to higher employee compensation expenses and professional services fees.

Looking ahead to the third quarter, the company expects adjusted loss in the range of $0.50 to $0.60 per share on projected revenues between $36 million and $48 million. Analysts currently expect a loss of $0.38 per share for the quarter, on revenues of $41.24 million.

The company also expects to deploy between 70 MW and 77 MW in the third quarter.

For fiscal 2013, the company reaffirmed its guidance for MWs deployed of 270 MW, which it raised from 250 MW in June 2013.

SCTY closed Wednesday's regular trading session at $42.50, down $1.37 or 3.12% on a volume of 3.83 million shares. The stock lost a further $4.00 or 9.41% in after-hours trading.