After stumbling out of the gate last quarter, SunPower
Well, SunPower sports some pretty unique attributes, so I think we need to be careful about extrapolating too much from this sole solar report. For example, scarcely any competitor can come close to matching the firm's deep dealer network. SunPower is also relatively dominant in the United States, having increased its California market share to around 30% this quarter, widening its lead over Sharp, Evergreen Solar
You might think the glut of solar wares would chisel away the differentiators between a SunPower and a Canadian Solar
With utilization of the firm's production lines below 50% during the quarter, SunPower was hardly pushing panels at a healthy clip this quarter. The story for the rest of the group ought to be fairly similar. No one's shooting the lights out, but solar firms' ability to keep the lights on is much less in doubt than a mere four months ago.
For me, there are two key questions at this point: How strong a recovery is now priced in for the back half of 2009, and what are the risks to that outlook? They're questions I hope to return to after these earnings reports have come and gone.
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