Solar industry is led by First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR), but according to recent reports, the US based GE Energy Firm that entered the CdTe thin-film solar cell industry in 2011 is also improving the CdTe thin-film solar cell efficiency. GE announced in January 2013 that it developed solar cell with conversion efficiency of 18.3%, to overpass the industry leader First Solar in terms of efficiency.
However, First Solar, Inc. declared that in a time period of less than one month it has successfully developed CdTe solar cells with conversion efficiency of 18.7% that is more than GE’s CdTe thin-film Solar Cell Efficiency.
If we look at the past, the CdTe thin-film solar cells had very lower conversion efficiency as compared to CIGS thin-film solar cells. However, with the passage of time the difference is narrowing, as reported by Digitimes latest research on it. With the current race between First Solar and GE, where both continue to aim for higher conversion efficiency for CdTe solar cells, the CIGS thin-film solar cells advantage is likely to wane.
Stock Highlights
In last trading activity, First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR) stock opened at $ 36.37 hit maximum price of $38.10 throughout the session and ended at $37.19 by trending up 2.41%.
Revenue Measures
First Solar generated sales of $3.37 billion in last twelve months with income of -96.34 million. The Company showed a negative -2.86% in the net profit margin and its operating margin is calculated as -1.12%. Company’s annual sales growth for the past five years was 46.22%.
FSLR past twelve months price to sales ratio was 0.96 and price to cash ratio recorded as 3.23. As far as the returns are concern, FSLR return on assets stayed at -1.59% while its return on equity recorded as -2.66%.
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