Many research firms increased their price targets on SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY) a day after the company reported its fiscal second-quarter results. The company reported a net loss of 96 cents a share on revenue of $61.334 million. Analysts expected the company to report 99 cents in losses and $63.24 million in sales. GAAP net loss stood at 52 cents a share.
SolarCity shows significant improvement in gross margins
On Friday, analysts at Canaccord Genuity raised their price target from $94 to $95. The revised price objective reflects a potential upside of about 35% from Friday’s close. SolarCity added well over 30,000 customers during the quarter. The company now has 141,034 customers, up 102% from the previous year. The company’s income was affected by rising expenses, but its gross margins improved significantly to 37.3% from 21.4% in the corresponding quarter a year ago.
Robert W. Baird analyst Ben Kallo also raised the price target from $80 to $83. Kallo reiterated his Outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Baird’s price objective reflects a potential upside of 18.33%. Separately, analysts at Credit Suisse also raised their price target from $93 to $97 while reiterating the Outperform rating on SolarCity on Friday.
SolarCity expects even deeper losses in Q3
SolarCity ended the June quarter with cumulative deployments of 756 MW. The San Mateo-based company has seen strong demand fueled by decreasing cost of solar energy. With the recent acquisition of Silevo, the solar installer expects to reduce the installation costs from the current level of $2.29/watt to $1.9/watt by 2017.
The company management issued an ambitious guidance for the current quarter. SolarCity forecasts to deploy 135-150MW of panels during the third quarter, up 83% from last year. SolarCity reiterated its full-year installation guidance of 500-550 MW and FY2015 guidance of 900-1,000 MW. The company projects an adjusted loss of $1.10-$1.20 per share, worse the than the Wall Street estimates of $1 in per-share losses.
SolarCity shares plunged 7.26% on Friday to close at $70.14.
