Ascent Solar posts net profit for Q1
Focus on space, defence, and emergency power market expected to grow revenue in 2020 and beyond
Ascent Solar Technologies, a US developer of flexible thin-film CIGS technology, has reported results for the quarter ended March 31, 2019.
The company posted net revenue of $215K for Q1 2019, a decline of approximately 43 percent from the corresponding quarter in 2018 of $378K. Cost of revenue, however, reduced and improved by approximately 67 percent from $273K in Q1-2017 to $91K in this period due to our primary focus in high-margin Tier-1 specialty PV markets.
As a result, loss from operations in this quarter improved by about 55 percent, down from ($2.1M) in the first quarter of 2018 to ($0.94M) in this period.
Despite loss from operations, the company reported net profit of $3.24M for the quarter, which included substantial net gain in non-cash items of approximately $4.2M in non-cash interest expense, change in fair value of derivatives and gain/loss on extinguishment of liabilities associated with the outstanding convertible notes. Overall, the bottom line reflected a net positive swing of about $7.7M, from net loss of ($4.4M) in Q1 2018 to net profit $3.24M in current quarter.
"We are satisfied with the overall results,"commented Victor Lee, president and CEO of Ascent Solar Technologies. "We will continue to streamline our business model to better focus on our core strength in the Tier-1 specialty PV markets with high entry barriers like the space and near-space, aviation (drones), military, 1st Responders and emergency power markets."
"The company has made significant progress in these high-value markets, and will continue to sharpen our focus in such areas where Ascent is truly at the forefront of the competition. Most notably, Ascent˙s superlight thin-film modules were selected and launched by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center to the International Space Station on November 17, 2018 as part of the MISSE-X flight experiment.
"Other notable milestones include our continuous development effort with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)˙s SolarPowerSail project utilising Ascent˙s superlight thin-film modules, as well as German Aerospace Center (DLR)˙s selection of our PV technology for further testing and evaluation for deep space mission.
"Our effort of being the first and only flexible CIGS manufacturer to have achieved ISO 9001:2015 certification, has enabled us to serve a larger universe of premium market customers who prefer products manufactured under a superlative Quality Management System and must be as robust and fail proof as possible."
Lee concluded, "Great progress was also made in the defence and emergency power market, which we believe will add to revenue growth in 2020 and beyond. We are optimistic and certainly look forward to stronger years ahead, as our high-value PV market focus begins to take shape. We look forward to updating our shareholders as we make continued progress.ˇ
