SunPower Plunges On Weak Forecast, Low Earnings Metrics And Plans To Cut Workforce

SunPower Corporation SPWR released its Q2 results after market close on Tuesday. Earnings per share came in above Wall Street consensus expectations, however, shares plunged due to the company's comments on its future workforce and guidance.

SunPower reported EPS of $(0.22) and revenues of $420.5 million. Analyst consensus had an EPS estimate of $(0.24) and revenues of $401.8 million.

SunPower saw FY16 revenues at $3-$3.2 billion vs. estimates of $3.29 billion and Q3 Revenues of $750-$850 million vs. estimates of $1.13 billion.

Additionally, management expected a workforce reduction of about 15 percent totaling about 1,200 employees in the future and restructuring charges totaling $30-$45 million.

"During the quarter we saw significant customer demand for our recently introduced Helix™ and SunPower Equinox™ complete commercial and residential solutions, respectively. We are also seeing stronger than anticipated demand and price premium for our highest efficiency, next generation X-21 and X-22 Series solar panels. In our upstream solar cell and panel manufacturing operations, we delivered strong yields and panel output in our fabs, continued our technology leadership with the announcement of our world record 24.1 percent efficient rooftop solar panel and successfully started up our first high volume, Performance Series production lines in Mexico," stated Tom Werner, SunPower president and CEO.

At time of writing, SunPower traded at $12.90 in Tuesday's after-hours session, down 12 percent.