SolarCity Shares Surge 7% As Q1 Results Top Estimates

(RTTNews) - Shares of SolarCity Corp. (SCTY) surged nearly seven percent in extended trading on Wednesday after the clean energy distributor reported results for the first quarter that topped analysts' expectations. The company also reported a net loss for the quarter that was narrower that last year. Cooking ahead, the company expects loss per share for the second quarter to came in wider than Street view, while projected quarterly revenues in line.

SolarCity noted that it achieved the high-end of guidance for both megawatts (MW) deployed and operating lease and solar energy systems incentive revenue, and set a new quarterly record with 136 MW booked.

The San Mateo, California-based company reported a net loss of $24.06 million or $0.26 per share for the first quarter, narrower than $40.92 million or $0.54 per share in the prior-year quarter, which had a lower share count.

Adjusted loss before noncontrolling interests and redeemable noncontrolling interests for the latest quarter was $0.82 per share.

On average, nine analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report a loss of $0.74 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Net income attributable to noncontrolling interests was $7.84 million, compared to a loss of $51.16 million last year.

Revenues for the quarter more than doubled to $63.55 million from $29.99 million in the same quarter last year, and topped nine Wall Street analysts' consensus estimates of $53.39 million.

Operating leases and solar energy systems incentives revenue soared 93 percent to $29.07 million from $15.09 million last year, and solar energy system sales more than doubled to $34.47 million from $14.90 million a year ago.

Residential MWs deployed soared 107 percent from last year to 67 MW to drive total MW deployments to 82 MW.

New customers increased to 17,664 from 11,867 a year ago leading to cumulative customer growth of 84 percent to 110,662 from last year.

Gross profit for the quarter increased to $14.79 million from $7.53 million in the year-ago quarter. Total operating expenses were $81.78 million, sharply higher than $34.25 million, largely owing to an accelerated ramp in sales headcount throughout the quarter as well as higher than forecast stock compensation expense.

The company said it added 17,664 customers, the largest quarterly gain in its history, to end the first quarter with over 110,000 customers and remain firmly on track to meet its one million customer target by mid-2018.

Looking ahead to the second quarter, the company expects adjusted loss in a range of $0.90 to $1.00 per share on projected revenues between $56 million and $64 million. Analysts currently expect a loss of $0.64 per share for the quarter, on revenues of $63.96 million.

The company also expects to deploy between 105 MW and 110 MW in the second quarter.

Looking ahead, the company raised its guidance for MWs deployed in fiscal 2014 to a range of 500 to 550 from previous guidance of 475 to 525, and establishing and initial guidance for fiscal 2015 MW deployed of between 900 MW and 1 gigawatt (GW).

The company noted that it expects to exit next year with more than 2 GW of cumulative MW deployed and annualized electricity production of about 2.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) and be on a path to fulfill its goal of becoming one of the largest suppliers of electricity in the U.S.

SCTY closed Wednesday's regular trading session at $47.71, down $4.75 or 9.05% on a volume of 9.66 million shares. However, the stock gained $3.29 or 6.90% in after-hours trading.