GT Advanced Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: GTAT) reported results for its second quarter of fiscal year 2012, which ended October 1, 2011.
Second quarter of fiscal 2012 revenue totaled $217.7 million, compared to $231.1 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2012 and $229.3 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2011. Revenue by business segment for the second quarter of fiscal 2012 was $98.0 million in polysilicon, $111.2 million in photovoltaic (PV), and $8.5 million in the sapphire segment. All of the sapphire segment revenue was for sapphire materials.
Revenue for the first six months of fiscal 2012 was $448.8 million, approximately 23% growth over the $364.5 million of revenue for the first six months of fiscal 2011.
Gross profit for the second quarter of fiscal 2012 totaled $95.1 million, or 43.7 percent of revenue, compared to $113.4 million, or 49.1 percent of revenue in the first quarter of fiscal 2012 and $93.1 million, or 40.6 percent of revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 2011.
Gross profit for the first six months of fiscal 2012 was $208.5 million or 46.5% of revenue, compared to $139.0 million or 38.2% of revenue for the first six months of fiscal 2011.
Operating margin for the second quarter of fiscal 2012 was 24.7 percent of revenue, compared to 34.0 percent in the first quarter of fiscal 2012 and 29.9 percent in the second quarter of fiscal 2011.
Operating margin for the first six months of fiscal 2012 was 29.5 percent of revenue, compared to 26.3 percent for the first six months of fiscal 2011.
The company had net income of $36.9 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2012, compared to $52.1 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2012 and $42.8 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2011. Earnings per share in the second quarter of fiscal 2012 on a fully-diluted basis was $0.29 compared to $0.41 for the first quarter of fiscal 2012 and $0.28 for the second quarter of fiscal 2011.
For the first six months of fiscal 2012, net income was $89.0 million compared to $59.3 million for the first six months of fiscal 2011. Earnings per share for the first six months of fiscal 2012 on a fully-diluted basis was $0.69 representing 73% growth over the $0.40 for the first six months of fiscal 2011.
Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash was $494.0 million at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2012 which included $10.2 million of restricted cash and reflects the use of approximately $61 million of cash for the Confluence Solar acquisition completed in August 2011. This compares to $473.4 million of cash and cash equivalents at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2012 and $294.2 million of cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and short term investments at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2011 which included $34.5 million of restricted cash.
In addition, the company had debt of $90.9 million at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2012, compared to $95.6 million at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2012 and zero debt at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2011.
As of October 1, 2011, the company’s backlog was $2.1 billion. This included $918.6 million in the polysilicon segment, $247.2 million in the PV segment and $955.0 million in the sapphire segment. Included in the total backlog was $460.8 million of deferred revenue.
New orders for the second quarter were $65.4 million and included $51.0 million of polysilicon orders, $3.4 million of PV orders and $11.0 million in sapphire orders. The company had $27.0 million of adjustments to backlog resulting in net orders of $38.4 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2012.
Management Commentary
“We are pleased to report solid financial performance in the second quarter with revenue and earnings above our guidance and gross margin expansion over the prior year,” said Tom Gutierrez, president and chief executive officer. “We continued to generate strong cash flow from operations and strengthened our balance sheet, while continuing our investments to extend GT’s technology leadership in the polysilicon, PV and sapphire businesses.
“Business activity in our polysilicon segment was robust in the second quarter with bookings by OCI, one of the top polysilicon producers in the world, as well as an engineering services contract with an incumbent polysilicon producer,” continued Gutierrez. “In our sapphire business there were successful ASF start-ups at Saifei and HTOT. In addition, we completed a blind study with a third-party wafer manufacturer that demonstrated the sapphire produced by our ASF system is of the highest quality in the industry.”
Gutierrez concluded, “On the PV side of the business, the industry downturn is more severe than most expected and as a result we now expect to see additional push outs of PV deliveries into FY13. Although we believe our sapphire and polysilicon equipment revenues will strengthen this fiscal year and that we will maintain our leading PV market share, we are adjusting our guidance range to reflect conditions in the PV industry.”
Business Outlook
The company revised its fiscal 2012 guidance for revenue in the range of $950 million to $1.05 billion, from its previous range of $1.0 billion to $1.1 billion, and fully diluted earnings per share to a range of $1.45 to $1.65 from its previous range of $1.50 to $1.80 based on estimated weighted average diluted shares outstanding of approximately 131 million. The company maintained its gross margin guidance range of 43 percent to 45 percent.
The company will provide additional details on its business outlook during its live webcasted conference call on Tuesday morning pre-market opening. See details below.
Investor Financial Summary Document
A comprehensive summary of the company’s financial performance can be found on the Investor Relations section of its website in the “Featured Documents” section and the “Q2 FY12 Earnings Call” webcast page. To access: //investor.gtsolar.com.
Conference Call, Webcast
Tomorrow morning, Tuesday, November 8, 2011, at 8:00am ET the company will host a live conference call to discuss quarterly results and the company’s longer-term outlook with Tom Gutierrez, president and chief executive officer, and Richard Gaynor, chief financial officer.
The call will be webcast live and can be accessed by logging on to the "Investors" section of GT Advanced Technologies’ website, //investor.gtat.com/. No password is required to access the webcast. A slide presentation will accompany the call.
The live call can also be accessed by dialing 866.831.6270 for callers in the United States and Canada and 617.213.8858 for international callers. The telephone passcode is GTAT.
A replay of the call will be available through February 6, 2012. To access the replay, please go to //investor.gtat.com/ and select the webcast replay link on the ‘Events and Presentations’ page. Or, please dial 888.286.8010 for callers in the United States and Canada, or 617 801.6888 for international callers. The telephone replay passcode is 99161343.