AstroPower Accelerates Capacity Expansion
Plans
PR Newswire - July 26, 2000 14:25
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NEWARK, Del., July 26 /PRNewswire/ -- AstroPower, Inc. (Nasdaq:
APWR), a leading supplier of solar electric power products, today reported an
acceleration of its capacity expansion plans.
"We continue to be capacity-constrained, in spite of more than tripling our
manufacturing capacity over the past three years," said Dr. Allen M. Barnett,
President and CEO of AstroPower. "At the time of our follow-on offering last
fall, our plan was to increase capacity to 25 megawatts by the end of 2000.
Over the past few months, we have increased this target to 30 megawatts, and
have recently adjusted it further to 35 megawatts. We plan to further accelerate
our plans for 2001 as well. Our customers continue to want more product than
we can currently deliver, and we have had to decline a large number of orders
from existing customers and inquiries from new prospects. We need to change
that situation, and capacity expansion is the principal way to accomplish that.
The current state of the strong market demand represents an excellent
opportunity for AstroPower to accelerate our historical rate of market share
acquisition. In addition to supporting the rapid growth being experienced by
many of our core customers, this additional capacity will allow us to pick up a
number of key customers around the world."
Dr. Barnett continued, "We believe that the effects of the expansion will be to
slightly increase revenues over the balance of 2000 and 2001. However, we
believe that our product gross margins, which have increased for a number of
quarters, will be relatively flat for the next few quarters, before beginning to
increase again. Nevertheless, we continue to expect growth in earnings per
share of at least 50% per year in 2000 and 2001."
About AstroPower
AstroPower is the largest US-owned manufacturer of solar electric power
products, and one of the world's fastest growing solar electric power
companies. AstroPower develops, manufactures, markets and sells solar cells,
modules, panels and systems for generating solar electric power. Solar electric
power systems provide a clean, renewable source of electricity in both off-grid
and on-grid applications. For more information, please visit
www.astropower.com.
This press release contains forward-looking statements that are made pursuant
to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, as described
in the Company's registration statement and periodic reports filed with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. As a result, there can be no assurance
that the Company's future results will not be materially different from those
projected. The projections contained herein speak only of the Company's
expectations as of the date of this press release. The Company hereby
expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any
updates or revisions to any such statements to reflect any change in the
Company's expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances
on which such statement is based.
SOURCE AstroPower, Inc.
/CONTACT: Allen M. Barnett or Thomas J. Stiner of AstroPower,
302-366-0400/
/Web site: astropower.com /
(APWR) |
