Enphase posts strong Q4 and massive 2019

From pv magazine USA

Enphase can claim that 2019 was the best financial year of its long-storied past, following the release of fourth-quarter and full-year 2019 results this week.

The company can also claim its “first full year of GAAP profitability” in its history.

A quick look at its 2019 and 2018 numbers shows massive top line growth with gains in net income while holding margins steady. Enphase doubled its year-on-year revenue – and went from loss to profit.

According to the WoodMackenzie U.S. leaderboard, Enphase and rival SolarEdge now own the U.S. residential solar inverter market, with a combined 80% market share.

Residential PV is one of the bright spots in U.S. solar. The U.S. residential solar market hit record highs in the third quarter of 2019 with 712 MW of solar installed, according to the Solar Market Insight report from SEIA. California added almost 300 MW of residential PV in the third quarter.

California’s new residential solar mandate, effective from the first day of 2020, is going to add more than 1 GW of PV over the next five years, according to analysts.

Q1 2020 guidance

Enphase guided first-quarter revenue to be within a range of $200 million to $210 million, including $44.5 million of revenue for ITC safe harbor shipments, with gross margin to be within a range of 36% to 39%.

The company has long vowed to introduce energy storage and non-solar products, but these new product lines are not making that large a revenue impact, yet.

“Enphase, SolarEdge, Pika/Generac … all bringing new storage [to market] and they’ll all go through a painful burn-in period,” one solar installer told pv magazine. “They all have their work cut out for them. I see the expanding storage space likely to be just as brutal, if not more so, than solar module manufacturing and sales.”