First Solar, Inc.

First Solar, Inc.

153.60
EUR
+3.40
(+2.26%)
14.20EPS
14.36P/E
21.98BMarket Cap
Oct 29Next Earn

Q1 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptApril 30, 2026

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to First Solar's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. This call is being webcast live on the Investors section of First Solar's website at investor.firstsolar.com.

All participants are in listen-only mode, and please note that today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to First Solar Investor Relations.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. We're joined today by Mark Widmar, our Chief Executive Officer, and Alex Bradley, our Chief Financial Officer.

Mark will provide an overview of our first quarter performance and an update on technology, manufacturing, and market conditions. Alex will then cover our bookings, financials, and our 2026 outlook.

After our prepared remarks, we'll open the line for questions. Today's discussion contains forward-looking statements.

Actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties as described in our earnings press release, other SEC filings, and the earnings materials available at investor.firstsolar.com. We undertake no obligation to update these statements due to new information or future events.

We will also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measure are in our earnings press release and presentation.

This non-GAAP financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

With that, I'll turn it over to Mark.

Mark Widmar

Thank you, and good afternoon. Beginning on slide 4, we delivered a strong start to 2026, with record first quarter revenue, record sales in India, meaningful margin expansion, and adjusted EBITDA above the top end of our first quarter preview range.

Since our last earnings call on February 24th, we secured gross bookings of 1.9 GW. Excluding domestic India volume, we booked 1.4 GW into our key U.S.

utility-scale market at an ASP of approximately 35 cents per watt, inclusive of applicable adjusters. Turning to slide 5, our technology strategy is anchored in the premise that customers value not just nameplate efficiency, but lifetime energy production as well.

CuRe is central to that strategy. Extensive testing data has validated our expected bifaciality, advantage temperature coefficient, and degradation profile, with CuRe anticipated to deliver up to 8% more lifetime specific energy yield than crystalline silicon TOPCon.

I'm pleased to report that CuRe launch is compute complete in Perrysburg, and the first Series 6 line is ramping consistent with expectations. CuRe is scheduled to be replicated across the Series 6 and 7 fleet through the first half of 2028, which, if achieved, supports the potential realization of up to $0.6 billion of additional revenue from technology adjusters in the backlog, with the majority anticipated in 2027 and 2028.

Turning to slide 6, we produced 4.3 GW of modules in the quarter, with approximately 3 GW from our U.S. facilities and 1.3 GW from our international fleet.

Our U.S. facilities operated at approximately 96% utilization.

South Carolina finishing facility is on track for production start in the second half of 2026, with equipment installation beginning this quarter. Upon completion, this facility is expected to provide finishing capacity for Series 6 modules initiated at our international factories, and optimize freight, tariff, and domestic content outcomes, while benefiting from Section 45X module assembly tax credits.

Our international facilities in Malaysia and Vietnam continue to operate at a significantly reduced utilization, consistent with current trade dynamics and lower ASP expectations for internationally produced modules. Turning to slide 7, our competitive position in the United States and India continues to strengthen, underpinned by differentiated technology, a domestic manufacturing footprint and bill of material, and independence from Chinese crystalline silicon supply chains.

In the United States, headwinds for crystalline silicons continue to build in our view, including trade remedy enforcement, indications of restrictive FEOC regulations, and the intellectual property litigation actions we have discussed on recent calls. For IP specifically, in March, the U.S.

International Trade Commission instituted our Section 337 investigation, with respondents representing a significant share of TOPCon modules currently imported into the United States. We expect an initial determination within approximately 11 months and final decision within 15 months.

In India, our presence reflects the same strategic logic that underpins our U.S. manufacturing investment: energy security and supply chain independence.

The policy framework, including the existing Approved List of Models and Manufacturers, or ALMM, and the anticipated implementation of the ALMM at the cell level, as well as domestic content requirements, currently favors vertically manufacturers such as First Solar. Near-term demand is supported by both utility-scale and distributed solar applications, including agricultural land developments where our CadTel technology's energy yield in hot, humid conditions is a meaningful differentiator.

Overall, our differentiated technology, our domestic manufacturing footprint, and our independence from Chinese supply chains are attributes that are increasingly valued by our customers, and we remain well positioned to deliver on our 2026 commitments. I'll now turn the call over to Alex to discuss our bookings, financial results, and outlook.

Alex Bradley

Thanks, Mark. Beginning on slide 8, as of March 31, 2026, our contracted backlog was 47.9 GW, with an aggregate transaction price of $14.4 billion, exclusive of technology adjusters, with deliveries through 2030.

During the first quarter, we sold approximately 3.8 GW, recorded gross bookings of approximately 1.7 GW, and recorded de-bookings of 0.1 GW. In India, our guidance assumes that production is largely sold domestically in a book-and-bill market at near full capacity.

In the first quarter, we sold approximately 1 GW in-country at an average selling price of approximately 20 cents per watt. In the United States, our domestic production is substantially committed through 2028 under existing contracts, resulting in relative pricing clarity through this period.

We continue to take a highly selective approach to incremental U.S. bookings as we await the outcomes from current policy and regulatory matters, in particular, the pending 232 polysilicon and derivatives tariff decision and proposed FEOC rulemaking.

During the first quarter, our gross bookings of 0.9 GW were at an average selling price of approximately 34 cents per watt, inclusive of applicable adjusters. With respect to our international fleet, demand for Series 6 modules produced end-to-end in Malaysia and Vietnam remains constrained, which is reflected in the reduced production Mark mentioned earlier.

Turning to slide 9, net sales of $1 billion were a record first quarter for the company, and grew 24% year-over-year. This was driven by a 31% increase in volume, partially offset by lower average sales price, reflecting a higher proportion of India deliveries.

Our gross margin in the first quarter was 47%, and expanded approximately 6 percentage points as compared to the first quarter of 2025. The drivers were primarily a higher volume of modules qualifying for Section 45X tax benefits, and significantly lower sales freight costs, including lower detention and demurrage.

On a per-watt basis, sales freight costs were approximately half of first quarter costs last year, at approximately 1.7 cents per watt. Furthermore, as part of our plan to rationalize warehouse costs to approximately $100 million by 2027, we delivered a $22 million sequential reduction in warehouse costs from Q4 2025.

On balance, these savings were partially offset by a lower average sales price due to a higher mix of India sales, and an increase in tariff costs year-over-year. Operating expenses for the quarter were $141 million, including R&D of $67 million, up $15 million year-over-year, primarily reflecting perovskite development and ongoing CuRe launch work.

Adjusted EBITDA was $520 million, above the high end of our first quarter preview range of $400 million to $500 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 50%.

Net income was $347 million, up 65% year-over-year, with diluted EPS of $3.22. Moving to slide 10, we ended the quarter with $2.4 billion of cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and marketable securities, and a net cash position of $2 billion, at the high end of our targeted resilient net cash range of approximately $1.5 to $2 billion.

Operating cash outflows of $215 million reflected normal first quarter working capital dynamics, a meaningful decrease from outflows of $608 million in the first quarter of 2025. Capital expenditures were $119 million, primarily for our South Carolina finishing facility.

We also completed a $45 million scheduled principal payment on our India DFC loan. Turning to slide 11, our full year 2026 guidance remains unchanged.

For the second quarter, we expect volume sold between 3.4 and 4 GW, and adjusted EBITDA of $400 to $500 million. In summary, our first quarter performance and reaffirmed guidance for the full year reflect the strength of our strategy of reshoring and scaling domestic manufacturing, progressing our technology roadmap, enforcing our intellectual property, and maintaining a selective approach to new bookings in light of key pending trade and policy determinations.

With that, we conclude our prepared remarks, and open the call for questions. Operator?

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad.

To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question, and if you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device.

Your first question comes from the line of Brian Lee from Goldman Sachs.

Brian Lee

Hey, guys. Good afternoon.

Thanks for taking the questions. Just had two here.

First on the module gross margins, I think it's around 7% in Q1 when we adjust out the 45X even with the high India mix, curious, the guide for Q2 implies margins are flattish. Why not more improvement given some of the sequential improvement in freight costs, warehousing, etc.?

Then what kind of tailwinds may be helpful into 3Q and 4Q for the margins beyond just volume growth? Then on the ASPs, maybe I'll just squeeze in the second question here.

This could be nitpicking, but on slide 8 you show 900 megawatts of U.S. bookings, 34 cents in Q1.

You mentioned 1.4 gigawatts since the last quarter at 35 cents, maybe it implies recent bookings March and April are higher at 36, 37 cents per watt. Anything to read into that?

What kind of engagements and discussions are you having here more recently ahead of more policy certainty? Thanks, guys.

Mark Widmar

I'll do the ASP first, Brian, then Alex can talk through the gross margin. ASP-wise, yeah, the 1.4 is call-to-call.

That's a little bit of maybe a clarification there. Which would include it's half and half, half of that happened before the quarter end, all that happened after the Feb call, but half of it happened before the quarter end, the other half happened after quarter end.

The average ASP for the call-to-call volume of that 1.4 was 35 cents. One other note to include in there is that there's about another 700 or so that's an option.

We're seeing a lot of M&A activity. What's great about First Solar, we've had very strong strategic partnerships with very competent obviously well-capitalized partners, and they're actually seeing a lot of development acquisition opportunities.

Actually talking with a team about another deal right now that one of our customers is actually in the process of acquiring and is looking for incremental volume to support that acquisition. What happened was we booked a deal for about 700 megawatts.

Our customer is actually now in a process of looking to acquire another development asset of which then they would exercise that option, which would have to be exercised here over the next several quarters upon completion of that acquisition. What I would just say, there's still a lot of momentum, a lot of activity going on, Brian, from a market standpoint.

We're being very disciplined, as we have in the prior quarters, with how we're engaging the market and how we're seeing through pricing. Still good momentum, discipline on our part, trying to realize good ASPs, and which I think we did here in the last call it eight weeks since the last earnings call.

Alex Bradley

Brian, on the gross margin, if you think about India, on an aggregate cents-per-watt or dollar-contribution basis, it's certainly lower than the U.S. If you look at where India's pricing today on a gross-margin-percent basis, it's not materially different to the U.S.

Despite having a higher India mix on the percentage gross margin basis, not a material impact. If you look at the full-year guide was 7%, we haven't changed the guide, that still holds, and that's right where we came in ex-IRA benefit in Q1.

As you think through going forward, next quarter we're guiding to the same guide that we had in Q1, it's relatively flat, which implies the second half mix should be stronger. Incremental volume should be beneficial to gross margin.

There's a little bit of value on the fixed cost side. The other piece in terms of the back end of the year is that right now our assumption on tariffs is that the Section 122 tariffs carry through for the 150 days from announcement, which takes us through sort of July time frame.

After that, we're not modeling tariffs beyond that for finished goods coming in, right, the cell, other tariff impact in there on the 232. Now, that's the modeling assumption we have today given uncertainty around what could happen.

As you're probably aware, the Trump administration has launched several 301 cases with the intent, we believe, to try and replace the 122 with that 301 later in the year, but as of now, we're not modeling that. The guide has stayed where it is.

The guide assumes no tariff replacement back end of the year. That would imply you might get some incremental gross margin.

However, if we do see additional tariffs, we'll obviously reflect that in the guide later on.

Mark Widmar

I think maybe one other thing, too, just around operationally quarter-on-quarter from a gross margin standpoint, we ran Malaysia, Vietnam at higher utilization rates in the first quarter than we anticipate running in the second quarter. You're going to see more underutilization charges in the second quarter.

Trying to get to your question, Brian, about sequential gross margin performance, we will see a little bit of headwind in the second quarter because of lower utilization rates for Malaysia, Vietnam.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Dushyant Ailani

Hey, guys. This is Dushyant here for Julien.

I guess two quick ones. Could you quantify the amount of adders, I guess, on that 34 or 35 cent ASP?

Is it 2 to 3 cents that you discussed before? Then second real quick one, how do you think about the Southeast Asian capacity going forward?

Thank you.

Mark Widmar

I'll take that. I'll do the adders and Alex can talk to the Southeast Asia thought process where we are on that.

One of the things is now with the launch of CuRe as an example, kind of I guess what I want to make sure people understand is the product to which we're going to price now going forward, given that the CuRe product is being launched, is going to be the technology which we anticipate to deliver in its full entitlement. If you look at the bookings that we reported, call that 1.4 gigawatts since the last earnings call, half of that volume actually sits out in 2029.

It's encouraging and we're starting to see more momentum in the outer years. That's a CuRe product that we expect to deliver.

When you look at the adder, and that in some cases the volume that we're seeing right now, there are no adders because we're pricing the technology, therefore you won't see an adder to that deal. When you look at the blended average of the adder, the entitlement of the adders are still call it 3 cents or so, but half of the volume that we booked did not have adders on it, the other half did.

The blended average of the adder is going to be call it a penny and a half or something along those lines. I think what we'd like to be able to do as we move forward, especially now with the launch of CuRe, we're just pricing the technology.

We're going to deliver the technology, we're going to price it, all the energy attributes will be embedded in the base price. We're kind of still in that transitionary period.

We're going to see some contracts that potentially have a combination of two: the base being our current semiconductor, which we refer to as CuTe plus adder, but for the windows of which we for sure are going to be delivering the CuRe product, we'll just price it as the contract, and you won't necessarily continue to see the adders. I just try to make that clarification.

As we transition in that direction, you're probably going to see less volume with adders on it and just full entitlement of the technology being priced.

Alex Bradley

As it relates to Malaysia, Vietnam, we talked on our previous call about maintaining an option around that capacity, and we're still doing that. If you look through what we're waiting, I think a large part of that is policy clarity around the 232, which really could spur potential demand around the fully finished international product.

If you go back to the original guide, we had $115 to $155 million of underutilization costs. That was a function both of Malaysia, Vietnam underutilization running at very low capacity through the year, as well as some of those costs associated with the new finishing line that we're bringing up.

Right now, we're continuing to maintain that near-term option. We'll continue to evaluate that.

Likely the decision point we're waiting on is policy clarity around the 232, which we expect most likely to come in Q2 of this year.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Christine Cho from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Christine Cho

Good evening. Thank you for taking my questions.

I actually wanted to know if we should think that there's an impact from the Section 232 changes on steel and aluminum for the Southeast Asian imports. I was under the impression that aluminum might be less than 15% of the weight of a full module, but now that you're going to be just importing the front of the module, how should we think about that?

Then I think you also said on the last call that 5 gigawatts of the backlog was international modules. Was the plan just to mostly import that at the beginning of the year, and it tails off at the end of the year, if you could just talk about the cadence of that as well?

Mark Widmar

I got the aluminum one. Repeat your second question, I want to make sure I have it.

Christine Cho

My second question, the 5 gigawatts of the backlog, I thought that was the international portion, was it not?

Mark Widmar

Yeah. No, that's about right.

I think that's the approximate number. Entering the year we had about 5 gigawatts of S6 international backlog.

Then from there your question was?

Christine Cho

Was the plan to mostly import that at the beginning of this year?

Mark Widmar

Oh, no. Okay.

I got it now. Sorry, that's the piece I didn't have.

That 5-gigawatt backlog on S6 international was a multi-year backlog. Those shipments would go across '26, '27, and into '28.

That was a multi-year. We will run that production to meet that demand of that portion of the backlog, call it a little bit more than 25%, around 25% of it would be for this year.

The balance would sit in the outer years as it relates to that. On the 232, yes, aluminum is still included in the tariffs for 232.

I think part of your question was as well, what happens with the semi-finished product that comes into the U.S. That will come in, the glass will come in obviously without the aluminum frame.

As of now, we will continue to import the aluminum frames into the U.S. Because they're continue to be imported, they'll be subject to the applicable rates associated with the 232 for aluminum.

Anyways, yes, 232 is still applicable for aluminum, based on the classification of the product we're bringing in, and no real change to that just because we're bringing in a semi-finished product from Malaysia.

Christine Cho

Then you guys have been doing a lot of India volumes in this quarter, and the full year assumes full utilization. I just saw that in one of your disclosures there's a proposal in India to increase the minimum efficiency of PV modules for manufacturers to be included in the ALMM, beginning in 2027.

Could you talk through exactly what's going on there and what your options are to work around it? I realize that it's still just a proposal, but.

Mark Widmar

A couple things. There's a lot of moving things that are going on in India, even including the requirements by 2028 to have a qualification of the wafer being domestically manufactured in India in order to qualify for any projects that actually connect to the grid, the federal grid or state grid.

That's moving, and is one of the moving pieces that will I think further enhance our opportunity to continue to support the Indian market, given our vertically integrated model. The other one is as relates to the consideration for the efficiency threshold.

We will be launching CuRe beginning of next year. In India, our first Series 6 facility that we'll launch in India will be CuRe, which will give us an opportunity to improve the efficiency of the technology, as well as continue to enhance the energy attributes, better bifaciality, better temperature coefficient, better long-term degradation rate.

As we continue to work with the MNRE in particular and other parts of the administration, and continuing to inform them and educate them on the value of the attributes of energy, which is also what our customers pay for, energy, not labeled efficiency, we continue to have very good and constructive dialogue in that regard. I think the key enabler to make sure we manage through any potential revisions to those requirements will be the launch of our next-generation technology of CuRe in India.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Dendrinos from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Chris Dendrinos

Thank you. I just wanted to follow up on the earlier question from Jefferies in regards to the Southeast Asia offtake agreement.

Can you maybe walk through a bit of the possible decision tree here, depending on I guess the tariff outcome and or an offtake agreement, and how you're thinking about that facility, and when would we have a potential decision as to what you all do longer term? Thanks.

Alex Bradley

Right now there's ample demand for the product at a certain price, but when you factor in the tariff implications of bringing that product in, and then the risk allocation around that tariff, it's not necessarily the right risk profile for us to take today. Depending on an outcome of the 232, you could potentially see much higher pricing or risk tolerance from buyers whereby we would be able to more appropriately price that product and more appropriately allocate the risk around changes in tariff policy, which would then enable us to be comfortable long-term contracting that product.

A lot of it depends on availability of supply in the U.S. and where tariff and risk can be allocated.

We think the 232 is most likely the main determinant of that. The outcomes there could be we continue to run that product at full capacity end-to-end and ship fully finished goods into the U.S.

It could be that there's demand we could add an incremental finishing line in the U.S. and finish that capacity here.

Or it could be that neither of those occur, and then we're into potential shut down of that capacity. Those are really the pieces we're looking at.

Mark Widmar

One thing maybe to help or remind everyone, as we showed in the last earnings call, historically, we've had about 7 gigawatts of capacity between Malaysia and Vietnam, okay? Half of that is now going to come to the U.S.

to support our South Carolina finishing line, 3.5 of that. That leaves the other three 3.5.

Now, what we indicated in the last earnings call, about half of that 3.5 is largely no longer available because we're moving some of that back-end capacity to the U.S. to support our perovskite pilot line.

Our perovskite full-size Series 6 pilot line will be available in 2027. We lose the back-end capacity, as a result of that we're losing some of that throughput for the facility.

When you really look at how much of the Malaysia facility of that 3.5 gigawatts that would be available, which would be fully manufactured, assembled modules to be shipped into the U.S., there's only about call it 1.8 gigawatts, maybe closer to 2, of real capacity. What we're talking about is from a full-size finishing module capacity perspective, there's slightly less than 2 gigawatts that is in play, that would tether back to a 232 decision point.

I just want to put that in perspective. As you think through your analysis and assessment of Malaysia, Vietnam, half of it's already going to be coming into the U.S.

as a semi-finished product, half of it capacity has been reduced because we're moving the back-end tools to help support our perovskite pilot line, and then now we're kind of still with about slightly less than 2 gigawatts in Malaysia, Vietnam that'll be tethered back to whatever decisions made with 232.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Phil Shen from ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead.

Phil Shen

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions.

On the 232, was wondering if you might be able to share a little bit more color on what the framework of that decision might be. I think we published earlier this week that there could be a minimum import price in the 38 cents per watt kind of level, and so does that resonate with you guys at all?

On your slide number 7, you talked about the timing being Q2. We've seen this push a bunch, right?

It was supposed to be year-end '25, but then the shutdown happened, and a bunch of other reasons have driven this a little bit later. As we are a month in to Q2, what's the confidence level that it comes out in May or June?

Then, on the technology front, Mark, I think you just talked about a full-scale line of perovskite in 2027, which is really interesting, and so was wondering if you could give us a little more color on that, what kind of costs are you seeing? Then, what's the base?

I got to believe it's CdTe on the bottom cell, and then perovskite on the top cell, but just any other color in terms of efficiency, durability, etc. Thanks.

Mark Widmar

Phil, on the 232 and the framework, look, there's still a lot of moving pieces, right? All I can say right now is that the engagement that we're having with the administration and the structure of which we are trying to propose, which again is not a percent, it's basically a cents per watt on the cell or cents per watt on the module, or could include a minimum import price, to your point, the feedback we continue to get is very positive to looking at that as the best way to address the polysilicon and its associated derivatives.

It's good, positive feedback. Phil, as you know how these things play out, they continue to evolve, and so we have to stay as well connected as possible to continue to advocate and advocate and advocate for that type of position.

What I would say is at least it's encouraging. As it relates to the timing, similar, the feedback that we are getting is still a resolution by the end of this quarter, maybe does it move into early Q1 potentially, but it's all dependent on other events that happen, right?

I think the intention is that they know they need to bring this to a conclusion, it's important, and they need to communicate an outcome. As Phil, these things can always move.

Is there a level of certainty for the quarter? What we've just represented in terms of the slide is the best information we have and what our expectations are based on those communications around an outcome and communication around 232.

On the technology side, yes, we are currently in a timeline that would have us running a pilot line in 2027 for perovskites. The cost piece of it, I'm not going to get into the specifics of that, but that pilot line, which is a 1-gigawatt pilot line, by definition is not going to be an HVM type of cost entitlement, right?

Because in order to get cost out, you need to run high throughput and scale, right? That's if you go back and if you look at when we went from our Series 6 factories to our Series 7 factories, we tripled the output effectively, and we managed it with the same head count, no real dramatic change to head count, and that helped drive cost out significantly.

At 1 gigawatt, you're going to be sub-optimized and cost is going to be higher. For an initial product to get it into the market and to get field validation and customer feedback and all the other things that we need, we think it's appropriate to do that upon launch, and then as we continue to evaluate, we'll move into a scaling mode.

Again, it's going to be a higher-cost product, there's no doubt about it upon launch. As it relates to the construct of what the product is, and is it a single junction, is it tandem, we're looking at two different paths, we're still evaluating what we believe is the right launch product.

I think the most important thing to do to get something in the field is to validate the performance of the perovskite. If you can do that and reduce some complexity of thinking through the additional challenges of integration of a tandem construct, because you have two different products that have different electrical properties, right?

Different temperature coefficients, as an example, and different electrical properties, voltage, current, and go on. To try to deal with the construct of matching those two different semiconductors and optimizing them and harmonizing them at the module level so they perform as effectively as a system if you want to refer to it as such, there's a level of complexity around that that I'm not sure it's worth the effort initially, because what you want to do is get the product in the field, validate its performance, validate its degradation, validate its performance in all forms of conditions, right?

Which would include open circuit, how does it perform in partial shading, there's a lot you can learn, and I think the most important thing you want to learn is at the perovskite level. We all know whether the tandem construct would be a perovskite with a CadTel module or a perovskite with a silicons bottom cell, those you can learn and evolve, but what you really need to do is validate the durability and viability of the perovskite and that it can perform in the field and be a bankable product and can hit the long-term performance objectives that it's going to be held to.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Vikram Bagri from Citi Bank. Please go ahead.

Vikram Bagri

Good evening, everyone. My first question, Mark, probably for you, we understand that the market for contracting panels at 33 cents a watt or higher is not as deep.

Customers are hesitant in pricing the Section 232 risk as of now. I was wondering once it comes out, based on your assumptions, sometime in late Q, how quickly can you move to book volumes, put it in another way, how much demand is waiting for Section 232 to come out?

What should we see or look for in bookings immediately after the Section 232 comes out?

Mark Widmar

Look, I think there's some unknowns in there as well. Once it gets communicated, then the other is what is the impact, right?

That'll be a key component of how much volumes and how quickly. What I will say is that we have some customers that are looking at multiple gigawatts of volume, and they're waiting.

What we've also said to some of those customers that once this gets communicated, depending on what the outcome of that communication is, it could have an impact on the current price that we're at least negotiating. The risk we run is that it ends up being lower than anticipated.

The risk they run is it ends up being higher than anticipated. I think there's quite a bit of demand there that should provide an opportunity for us to move through and to book that over a month period of time.

It really depends on the outcome, and that's really what it relates to is what do we expect that outcome. We're trying to create a price point we think that's reflective of the midpoint, and we'll see what comes out.

If we're wrong, then we may see a little bit of ASP pressure, and if we're right, we may see a little bit of upside relative to that marker we have engaged the market with right now.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Colin Rusch from Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Colin Rusch

Thanks so much, guys. It's a two-part question.

First, as you move from Series 6 to Series 7 with CuRe, can you talk about the key technical elements that you guys are working on right now and things that we should be watching for success? Then can you talk about any sort of impact that you're seeing from the incremental capacity, the domestic capacity that's coming online, to some of your pricing negotiations?

Mark Widmar

Look, the the on a from a technical standpoint, Series 6 to Series 7 isn't really a a significant technical challenge. What what it is, though, is because you it's just a form-factor change for the most part, right?

We are for the Series 7 launch, so right now, we are for the the front contact buffer, we actually are taking our existing TCO glass and then we're actually depositing the the front contact buffer for Series 6. For Series 7, our plan would be, because we've been working with our glass suppliers, to allow them just to do it within their facility.

We no longer will we'll just get our standard TCO, we'll get the the glass will also be included include the revised front contact buffer that we need for for CuRe. That'll simplify the factory operations from that standpoint.

Really it's just the difference of the size of the tools. The tools that, we there are a couple new tools that we've had to add.

It's because the being based on method and and process is different for CuRe and our existing product, and so there are a couple new tools. Again, those are first-of-a-kind tools that have been, designed and spec'd for a smaller form-factor product in Series 6, we have to now operate those tools, season those tools to get them to the performance level that we need for a different-sized form factor.

It's not as much of a technical challenge, it's just that there's a slightly different, process that we're using, because in in Series 6, at least the launch, we're doing the the front contact buffer, in Series 7 we won't be doing it, and then the difference in size of the tools is really what the what the real challenge is. Which, we're working through that, we're we're validating all that right now, and we're going to go as fast as we can.

Once we get comfortable with the validation of a lot of that, we'll we'll move forward and try to replicate as quickly as we can across across the fleet. The the new new capacity, not, if you exclude our fully integrated capacity between, Ohio, Alabama, and Louisiana, the new facility in in South Carolina is going to be a semi-finished product.

What's nice about it is, it's a Series 6 form factor, it does have domestic content, but doesn't have as much domestic content as the product that we manufacture in in Ohio, but it creates a nice opportunity to blend the two together for our customers. They, they get value out of that as well.

It does sort of create an opportunity to be a little bit more competitive on pricing. It creates an opportunity to to create more domestic content value to our customers, and therefore enabling a broader portfolio of projects that can benefit from the domestic content bonus, which is extremely valuable to our customers, especially on the ITC side, which in, in some cases we're talking, at the project level, 15 or 20 cents or more of value to our customers to enable that bonus.

It's a it's a nice way to sort of enhance and further create value to our customers' portfolio by enabling them to see higher realization against domestic content bonus for ITC in particular.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Praneeth Satish from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Praneeth Satish

Good evening. Thanks.

With the IP tariffs repealed and import tariffs on India-produced modules down to 15%, just seeing how are you thinking about selling the India capacity into the U.S. versus selling it in the Indian market?

Is that something that you're still considering, maybe if we get a positive 232 outcome? Then to the extent that you are, what's the lead time and retooling costs that would be required to enable that?

Then just a quick housekeeping question on the 1.7 gigawatts of bookings this quarter. Are you able to break out roughly how much of that is from U.S.

capacity versus international? Thanks.

Mark Widmar

Look, right now there's a lot of demand in India. We just sold a gigawatt last quarter, and when you look at the actual gross margin on that product, effectively, it's the highest gross margin that we have, excluding the benefits of 45X.

The gross margin is on a percentage basis is obviously attractive. Even though we've tried to optimize to make it more efficient to change from a fixed-tilt product to a tracker product, it still is not efficient to do that.

We are right now looking at this from a lens of, let's just keep running that product because of the demand that we're seeing, at least through the first half of the year. Q3, we see a little bit of softness generally in India, and then we'll see a stronger Q4.

There may be a little bit of volume in Q3. Assuming the tariff environment stays where it is, the 122s expire at the end of July, we're going to be looking at whatever tariff environment would be enduring after that.

We have no idea what will happen with the 301s. It's kind of a watch card, we'll see what happens.

We will be bringing some volume over. We're talking tens to low 100 megawatts or so of whip-share product from India and bringing that into the U.S.

and finishing here in the U.S. We're doing some of that the first half of the year to help enable demand here in the U.S.

market. It's something we continue to evaluate.

I just think we just don't want to until we have a better understanding of what the long-term tariff environment's going to be, because again, we don't know after the 150-day window for the 122s what exactly tariff environment will be in. I think for now, we're going to focus on a market that has very strong demand and continue to support it from that standpoint.

Alex Bradley

Praneeth, to your housekeeping question, of the 1.7, the 0.9 was U.S. and 0.8 was India bookings.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Maheep Mandloi from Mizuho. Your line is open, please go ahead.

Maheep Mandloi

Hey, thanks for the questions. Just maybe a question on housekeeping on the first half versus second half cadence, if I look at the EBITDA versus the volumes, looks like the EBITDA is 36% in the first half, but 44% of the volumes.

Just trying to understand is that because of India shipping is higher in the first half or is it SG&A which is kind of skewing the EBITDA in the first half of second half?

Alex Bradley

It's mostly driven by the India volumes. As Mark said, we had a strong Q1 for India.

It will drop down in Q2, Q3, potentially pick back up in Q4, but as of now, the guide assumes that imbalance, which is why you're seeing that.

Maheep Mandloi

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Joseph Osha from Guggenheim Securities. Please go ahead.

Joseph Osha

Hi. Thank you.

I'm still trying to understand the composition of this 3.5 gigawatts in South Carolina. Are you saying that, for starters, is perovskites part of that?

Then you're saying that, absolutely no matter what happens, we're going to run 1 gigawatt and change the Series 6 through there and that the rest is optional? I'm trying to put together where this 3.5 comes from.

Thank you.

Mark Widmar

Thanks for that question, Joseph. That 3.5 in South Carolina will be our CuRe product and Series 6 product.

It has nothing to do with perovskites. It's going to be product that will be started, think about it just basically the substrate glass with the deposition on it with cell scribing, and then shipped to the U.S.

to be finished, which will include the cover glass, junction box, the frame, interlayer, all the other stuff that's got to be added to it, right? That's what that product is, right?

It is a CadTel product. In addition to that, we will be launching a pilot line next year, which we'd communicated this as well at our last earnings call.

We made the announcement that we've acquired the IP for Oxford for perovskites, which enhances the IP that we already have to manufacture that product here in the U.S. We will be starting that with a pilot line that'll have up to a gigawatt of capacity.

That pilot line will actually be in our Perrysburg facility. We have existing facility space in Perrysburg that we will be integrating and using for that pilot line, and we'll be leveraging some of the capabilities that we already have for back-end processing and what have you in Perrysburg.

That's what that means, right? It's a pilot line, we still think of it as development, has a gigawatt of capacity.

We will be manufacturing product and we'll be deploying it into the market, getting test data, validation with customers, and those types of things. South Carolina will be a CadTel product, started in Vietnam, Malaysia, finished in South Carolina.

Alex Bradley

Maybe there's part of the confusion there. If you think about the original 7 gigawatts of capacity we had in Malaysia, Vietnam, 3.5 is still going to be used for the front end, but the product then comes to be finished in South Carolina.

Of the remaining 3.5, we're using some of those tools. Those tools will then go into the perovskite line in Perrysburg.

That's why the remaining CadTel capacity in Southeast Asia comes down, but it's not mixing CadTel and perovskite. It's simply saying some of those back-end tools will now no longer be used there, they're going to go over to Perrysburg and be used in that 1-gigawatt pilot line for perovskites.

Operator

Our final question comes from the line of Ben Kallo from Baird. Please go ahead.

Ben Kallo

Hey, guys. I just have a follow-up question and then another one.

Just to Joe's question, what is the capacity after all that's done? Cuz I think, Mark, you said that you lose some capacity in Vietnam and Malaysia, and so I just want to make sure we have the volume number correct as we enter next year.

Then my follow-up question is just on TOPCon and your patent, and what Tesla's doing and how you think about them starting manufacturing here, and if that's going to violate your patent. Thank you.

Alex Bradley

Ben, if you go back to the deck that we presented in February, we gave capacity and production for '26 and '27, and the assumptions at that point have not changed to now. If you look on a production basis, we said for 2027 would be round about 19 to 20.5 gigawatts, 19.7 I think was the midpoint of production, and that's not changed.

If you go back to that deck, you'll see the breakout there in terms of geographic location of production.

Mark Widmar

Ben, as it relates to our TOPCon patent, what we do know is that any of the TOPCon product, and you can see by the filings that we've done and the number of manufacturers who have produced TOPCon and have sold it into the U.S., effectively all of those parties have been infringing on our IP. Okay?

If Tesla chooses to go with TOPCon, my assessment would be given what I see in the market, unless Tesla tries to redesign the product such that it would not infringe on our IP, I guess my assumption would be there'll be some form of infringement. Okay?

Look, I just want to make sure that it's clear that we are more than willing to work with any counterparty to engage in a commercial conversation around the licensing of our IP. We are not prohibiting that conversation, right?

The issue is we just want to be paid fair value. That's also why we licensed the IP to Talon.

Talon has demonstrated a willingness to pay fair value for the technology that's enabling the product that they're going to manufacture, and that's fine. We'll do that with other counterparties.

If Tesla chooses to use a TOPCon product that uses our IP, then we'll enter into a commercial conversation with them and happily engage with a conversation of licensing that IP. There's nothing wrong with that and would be more than happy to do that.

I do think it's one of the challenges that Tesla's going to have to figure out what technology do they go with, and how do they get freedom to operate. IP's going to be a significant challenge, at least in my mind, as it relates to TOPCon, because it's a challenge that everyone else here in the U.S.

I think has realized as well, in particular as it relates to the strength of our IP. We're more than happy to enter into a commercial conversation with them if they choose to do that or want to do that, and we'll figure out a license arrangement that can work for both parties.

Look, I think Tesla establishing capability here in the U.S. market, what we've always said is we need a robust and resilient domestic supply chain, completely vertically integrated, beyond just thin-film CadTel, that's also why we're evolving towards perovskites as next-generation thin films.

Tesla bringing in that capacity and that capability and creating a domestic supply chain, I think it only further enhances and supports kind of the overall strategic intent around long-term energy independence and national security. Having domestic supply chains, I think, are extremely valuable in both of those regards.

Operator

At this time, there are no further questions. This concludes today's call.

Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect.