Good afternoon, and welcome to First Solar's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. This call is being webcast live on the investor 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 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 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 the U.S. GAAP. With that, I'll turn it over to Mark.
Thank you and good afternoon. Beginning on slide four, 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 $0.35 per watt, inclusive of applicable adjusters. Turning to slide five, 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 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 six, 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 seven, 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 restricted FEOC regulations, and the intellectual property litigation actions we have discussed on recent calls. Our IP specifically, in March, the U.S. International Trade Commission instituted our Section 337 investigation with respondents representing a significant share of top 10 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 CdTe 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.
Thanks, Mark. Beginning on slide eight, as of March 31, 2026, our contracted backlog was 47.9 GW at an aggregate transaction price of $14.4 billion, exclusive of technology adjustments, with deliveries through 2030. During the first quarter, we sold approximately 3.8 GW, recorded gross bookings of approximately 1.7 GW, and recorded debookings 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 $0.20 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 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 $0.34 per watt, inclusive of applicable adjustments. 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 nine, 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 rate costs, including lower detention and demurrage. On a per-watt basis, sales rate costs were approximately half of first quarter costs last year at approximately $0.017 per watt. 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 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-$500 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 60%. 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 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 billion-$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 volumes sold between 3.4 GW and 4 GW and adjusted EBITDA of $400 million-$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 floor for questions. 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. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Your first question comes from the line of Brian Lee from Goldman Sachs.
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, you know, the guide for Q2 implies margins are flattish. Why not more improvement given some of the sequential improvement in, you know, freight costs, warehousing, et cetera? What kind of tailwinds may be helping to 3Q and 4Q for the margins beyond just volume growth? On the ASPs, maybe I'll just squeeze in the second question here. This could be nitpicking, but on slide eight, you show 900 MW of U.S. bookings, $0.34 in Q1.
You mentioned 1.4 GW since the last quarter at $0.35. It maybe implies recent bookings March and April are higher at $0.36-$0.37 per watt. Anything to read into that? What kind of, you know, customers, engagements and discussions are you having here more recently ahead of, you know, more policy certainty? Thanks, guys.
I'll do the ASP first, Brian, and then Alex will talk through the gross margin. ASP-wise, yeah. The 1.4 GW is call to call. That's a little bit of maybe a clarification there. Which would include a figure, this 50/50 . Half of that happened before the quarter end, all of it 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 a call to call volume of that 1.4 GW was $0.35. One other note to include in there is that there's about another 700 MW or so that's an option. We're seeing a lot of M&A activity.
We're seeing a lot of, what's great about First Solar, we've had very strong strategic partnerships with very competent, obviously well-capitalized partners. They're actually seeing a lot of development, acquisition opportunities. Actually talking with the team about another deal right now that one of our customers is actually in the process of acquiring, is looking for incremental volume to support that acquisition. What happened was we booked a deal for about 700 MW. Our customer is actually now in the 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, you know, 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. You know, still good momentum, discipline on our part, trying to realize good ASPs, and which I think we did here in the last, I call it, eight weeks since the last earnings call.
Brian, on the gross margin, if you think about India on an aggregate sense 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 X 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 is to be stronger. Incremental volumes 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 to the July timeframe. After that, we're not modeling tariffs beyond that for finished goods coming in, right? There's still other tariff impacts in there on the Section 232. 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 Section 301 cases with the intent, we believe, to try and replace the Section 122 with that Section 301 later in the year. As of now, I'm not modeling that.
The, 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 reflect that in the guide later on.
I think maybe one of the things too, just around operationally quarter-on-quarter from a gross margin standpoint, you know, We ran Malaysia, Vietnam at higher utilization rates in the first quarter than we anticipate running in the second quarter. You're gonna 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 the lower utilization rates for Malaysia, Vietnam.
Your next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys, this is Dushyant here for Julien. I guess two quick ones. Could you quantify the amount of adders, I guess, on that $0.34 or $0.35 ASP? Is it like $0.02-$0.03 that you discussed before? Then second real quick one, how do you think about the Southeast Asian capacity going forward? Thank you.
I'll take that. Yeah, I'll do the adders and Alex can talk to Southeast Asia thought process and where we are on that. One of the things is now with the launch of CuRe, as an example, you'll see it's kind of I guess what I wanna make sure people understand is the product at which we're gonna price now going forward, given that 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 it at 1.4 GW since the last earnings call, 1/2 of that volume actually sits out in 2029. It's encouraging that 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 volumes that we're seeing right now, there are no adders 'cause 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 $0.03 or so. Half of the volume that we booked did not have adders on it, the other half did. The blended average of the adder is gonna be, you know, call it $0.015 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 pricing the technology. We're gonna deliver the technology, we're gonna price it. All the energy attributes will be embedded in the base price. We're kind of still in that transitionary period. We're gonna see some contracts that potentially have the combination of two, the base being our current semiconductor, which we refer to as [QED] plus adder. For the windows in which we for sure are gonna 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 so as we transition in that direction, you're probably gonna see less volume with adders on it and just full entitlement of the technology being priced.
As it relates to Malaysia, Vietnam, we talked on our previous call about maintaining an option around that capacity, 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 million-$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.
Your next question comes in the line of Christine Cho from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Thank you for taking my question. 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 just the front of the module, like, how should we think about that? I think you also said on the last call that 5 GW of the backlog was international modules. Was the plan just to mostly import that at the beginning of the year, it tails off at the end of the year? If you could just talk about the cadence of that as well.
I got the aluminum one. Repeat your second question though, make sure I have it.
My second question, the 5 GW.
Yeah. Yeah, go on
Of the backlog I thought that was the international portion. Was it not?
Yeah, yeah. No, that's about right. I think that's the approximate number. Yeah, that was entering the year, we had about 5 GW of S6 international backlog. From there, your question was?
Was the plan to mostly import that at the beginning of this year?
Oh, no. Okay, I got it now. Sorry, that's the piece I didn't have. Yeah, that 5 GW of backlog on S6 international was a multi-year backlog. Those shipments would go across 2026, 2027, into 2028. 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% 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.
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 still continuing to be imported, they'll be subject to the applicable rates associated with the 232 for aluminum. So anyway, yes, 232 is still applicable for aluminum, you know, based on the classification of the product we're bringing in. No real change to that just because we're bringing in a semi-finished product from Malaysia.
Okay. You guys have, you know, you're, you guys have been doing a lot of India volumes in this quarter, and the full year assumes full utilization. I just saw that there was, like, in one of your disclosures about 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.
Yeah, a couple of 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 the 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 India market, given a vertically integrated model. The other one is it 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 continuing to enhance the energy attributes, better bifaciality, better temperature coefficient, better long-term degradation rate. As we continue to work with, say, 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. But 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.
Your next question comes from the line of Chris Dendrinos from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Yeah. 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 or an offtake agreement and how you're thinking about that facility? When would we have a potential decision as to what you all do longer term? Thanks.
Yeah, I mean, right now there's ample demand for the product at a certain price. 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 a 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. It could be that neither of those occur, and then we're into potential shutdown of that capacity. Those are really the pieces we're looking at.
Yeah. One thing maybe just to help remind everyone as when we showed in the last earnings call. Historically, we've had about 7 GW of capacity between Malaysia and Vietnam, okay? Half of that is now gonna come to the U.S. to support our South Carolina finishing line. 3.5 GW of that. That leaves, you know, the other 3.5 GW. What we indicated in the last earnings call, about 1/2 of that 3.5 GW is largely no longer available because we're moving some of that backend 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 backend 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 GW 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 GW, maybe closer to 2 GW of real capacity. What we're talking about is from a full-size finishing module capacity perspective, there's slightly less than 2 GW that is in play that would tether back to a 232 decision point. I just wanna put that in perspective. As you think through your analysis and assessment of Malaysia, Vietnam, half of it's already gonna be coming to the U.S. as a, as a semi-finished product. Half of it has already been capacity has been reduced because we're moving the backend tools to help support our perovskite pilot line.
Now we're kinda still with about slightly less than 2 GW in Malaysia, Vietnam, that'll be tethered back to whatever decision is made with 232.
Your next question comes from the line of Phil Shen from Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. On the Section 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 $0.38 per watt kinda level. Does that resonate with you guys at all? On your slide number seven, you talked about the timing being Q2. You know, we've seen this push a bunch, right? It was supposed to be year-end 2025, the shutdown happened, a bunch of other reasons have driven this a little bit later.
As we are a month into Q2, what's the confidence level that it comes out in May or June? On the technology front, Mark, I think you just talked about a full-scale line of perovskite in 2027, which is really interesting. Was wondering if you could give us a little more color on that. You know, what kind of costs are you seeing? Then, you know, is that what's the base? I gotta believe it's CdTe on the bottom cell, and then perovskite on the top cell. Just any other color in terms of, you know, efficiency, durability, et cetera. Thanks.
Phil, on the 232 and the framework, I mean, 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, you know, per watt in the cell or cents per watt on the module, or could include, you know, 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.
We have to stay as well connected as possible to continue to advocate for that type of position. What I would say is at least it's encouraging. As it relates to the timing, similar, you know, the feedback that we are getting is still a resolution, you know, by the end of this quarter. You know, it doesn't move into early Q1 potentially. It's all dependent on other events that happen, right? There's always 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 you know, Phil, these things can always move. You know, is there a level of, you know, certainty for the quarter?
What we just represented in terms of the slide is the, you know, the information, the best information we have and what our expectations are based on those communications around an outcome and communication around Section 232. The, on the technology side, yeah. We are, you know, currently in a timeline that would have us running a pilot line in 2027 for perovskites. The cost piece of it, you know, I'm not gonna get into the specifics of that, but that pilot line, which is a 1 GW pilot line, by definition is not gonna be an HVM type of cost entitlement, right? Because in order to get cost out, you need to run high throughput and scale, right?
You know, that's like if you go back and if you, if you look at when we went from our Series 6 factories to our Series 7 factories, they're, you know, we tripled the output effectively, and we managed it with the same headcount, so no real dramatic change to headcount, and that helped drive cost out significantly. At 1 GW, you're gonna be sub-optimized and, you know, cost is gonna 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, you know, we think it's appropriate to do that upon launch. As we continue to evaluate, we'll move into a scaling mode. Again, it's gonna be a higher cost product.
There's no doubt about it upon launch. You know, as it relates to the, you know, construct of what the product is, and is it a single junction? Is it tandem? I mean, you know, we're looking at two different paths. You know, 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. You know, if you can do that and reduce some complexity of thinking through the additional challenges of integration of a tandem construct. Cause you have, you know, you have two different products that have different electrical properties, right? Different temperature coefficient, you know, as an example, and different electrical properties, voltage, current, go on.
You know, 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 a system, if you wanna refer to it as such. You know, there's a level of complexity around that that I'm not sure it's worth the effort initially. What you wanna do is get the product in the field, validate its performance, validate its degradation, validate its, you know, performance in all forms of conditions, right? Which would include open circuit. How does it perform in partial shading, you know? There's a lot you can learn, and I think the most important thing you wanna learn is at the perovskite level.
We all know how whether the, you know, tandem construct would be a perovskite with a CdTe module or, you know, a perovskite with a, with a silicon bottom cell. You know, those you can learn and evolve, but what you really need to do is validate the durability and viability of the perovskite, that it can perform in the field and be a bankable product and can hit the long-term performance objectives that it's gonna be held to.
Your next question comes from the line of Vikram Bagri from Citibank. Please go ahead.
Good evening, everyone. My first question, Mark, probably for you. We understand that the market is for contracting panels at $0.33 a watt or higher is not as deep. Our customers are hesitant in pricing the Section 232 risk as of now. I was wondering, like, once it comes out based on your assumption sometime in late 2Q, how quickly can you move to book volumes? Put it another way, how much demand is waiting for Section 232 to come out? What's sort of like, you know, what should we see or look for in bookings after, immediately after the Section 232 comes out?
Well, look, I think there's some unknowns in there as well. I mean, once it gets communicated, then the other is what is the impact, right? That'll be, you know, a key component of how much volume and how quickly. I mean, what I will say is that we, you know, 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. You know, 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, you know, should provide an opportunity for us to move through and to book that over a multi, you know, a month, you know, period of time. Yeah, it really it depends on the outcome, and that's really what the, you know, where you got a bid ask right now. That's what it relates to, is what do we expect that outcome. You know, we're trying to create a price point we think that's reflective of the midpoint, we'll see what comes up. If we're wrong, then, you know, we may see a little bit of ASP pressure, and if we're right, we may see a little bit of upside relative to, you know, that marker we have engaged the market with right now.
Your next question comes from the line of Colin Rusch from Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.
Thanks so much, guys. You know, it's a two-part question. First, you know, 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, you know, domestic capacity that's coming online to some of your pricing negotiations?
Yeah, look, from a technical standpoint, Series 6 to Series 7 isn't really a significant technical challenge. What it is, though, it's just a form factor change for the most part, right? We are for the Series 7 launch. Right now, you know, we are further the front contact buffer. We actually are taking our existing TCO glass, then we're actually depositing 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'll just get our standard TCO. We'll get, the glass will also be included, include the revised front contact buffer that we need for CuRe.
That will simplify the factory operations from that standpoint. Really it's just the difference of the size of the tools. You know, there are a couple new tools that we've had to add. It's because the BKM, the best known method and process is different for CuRe and our existing product. There are a couple of new tools. Again, those are first of a kind tools that have been, you know, 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 size form factor. It's not as much of a technical challenge.
It's just that there's a slightly different, you know, process that we're using because in Series 6 and at least to launch, we're doing the front contact buffer. In Series 7, we won't be doing it. The difference in size of the tools is really what the real challenge is. Which, you know, we're working through that. We're validating all that right now. We're going to go as fast as we can. You know, once we get comfortable with the validation of a lot of that, we'll move forward and try to replicate as quickly as we can across the fleet.
You know, the new capacity, not, you know, if you exclude our fully integrated capacity between, you know, Ohio, Alabama, and Louisiana, the new facility in South Carolina is going to be a semi-finished product. What's nice about it is, you know, 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 Ohio. It creates a nice opportunity to blend the two together, for our customers. They, you know, they get value out of that as well. you know, it does sort of create an opportunity to be a little bit more competitive on pricing.
It creates an opportunity to create more domestic content value to our customers, 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, you know, in some cases, we're talking, you know, at the project level, $0.15 or $0.20 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.
Your next question comes from the line of Praneeth Satish from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Thanks. With the IEEPA 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? To the extent that you are, what's the lead time and retooling costs that would be required to enable that? Just a quick housekeeping question on the 1.7 GW of bookings this quarter. Are you able to break out roughly how much of that is from U.S. capacity versus international? Thanks.
On India. Look, I mean, right now there's a lot of demand in India. You know, we just sold 1 GW of last quarter. When you look at the actual gross margin on that product, effectively, you know, 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. The changeover is always, you know, downtime, you know, even though we try 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, you'll see a stronger Q4. There may be a little bit of volume in Q3, assuming, you know, the tariff environment stays where it is. The challenge with, you know, the 122s expire at the end of July, we're gonna be looking at whatever tariff environment would be enduring after that. We have no idea what will happen with the 301s. We, you know, it's kind of a watch card. We'll see what happens. We will be bringing some volume over.
We're talking, you know, 10MWs to, you know, low 100 MW or so of WIP 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. Yeah, it's a, you know, something we continue to evaluate. I just think we just don't wanna, 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 we'll be in. I think for now we're gonna focus on a market that has very strong demand and continue to support it from that standpoint.
May I say, a housekeeping question. Of the 1.7 GW, so 0.9 GW was U.S., and 0.8 GW was India bookings.
Your next question comes from the line of Maheep Mandloi from Mizuho. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks for the question. Just maybe some housekeeping on the first half of the 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 and second half?
Yeah, 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, and potentially pick back up in Q4. As of now, the guide assumes that that imbalance, which is why you're seeing that.
Got it. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Joseph Osha from Guggenheim Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you. I'm still trying to understand the composition of this 3.5 GW in South Carolina. Are you saying that, for starters, is perovskite part of that? You're saying that, you know, absolutely no matter what happens, we're gonna run 1 GW and change of Series 6 through there, and the rest is optional. I'm trying to put together where this 3.5 GW comes from. Thank you.
Thank, thanks for that question, Joe. The 3.5 GW in South Carolina is our CuRe or will be our CuRe product. Series 6 product has nothing to do with perovskite. It's gonna be product that'll 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 back, junction box, the frame, interlayer, all the other stuff that's got to be added to it, right? That, that's what that product is, right? It, it is a CdTe product. Okay. In addition to that, we will be launching a pilot line next year, which we had communicated this as well at our last earnings call.
You know, we made the announcement that we acquired the IP for Oxford for perovskite, 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 will have up to 1 GW 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. We'll be leveraging some of the capabilities that we already have for backend processing and what have you in mid-Perrysburg. That's what that means, right? It's a pilot line, we still think of it as development. It has 1 GW 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 CdTe product, started in Vietnam, Malaysia, finished in South Carolina.
Maybe just part of the confusion there. If you think about the original 7 GW of capacity we had in Malaysia, Vietnam, 3.5 GW is still gonna be used for the front end of the product that then comes to be finished in South Carolina. Of the remaining 3.5 GW, we're using some of those tools. Those tools will then go into the perovskite line in Perrysburg. That's why the remaining CdTe capacity in Southeast Asia comes down. It's not mixing CdTe and perovskite. It's simply saying some of those back-end tools will now no longer be used there. They're gonna go over to Perrysburg and be used in that 1 GW pipeline for perovskites.
Our final question comes from the line of Ben Kallo from Baird. Please go ahead.
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? Cause I think, Mark, you said that you lose some capacity in Vietnam and Malaysia. Like, I just wanna make sure we have the volume number correct, you know, as we enter next year. My follow-up question is just on TOPCon and your patent, and what Tesla is doing and, you know, how you think about them starting manufacturing here and if that's gonna violate your patent. Thank you.
Ben, if you go back to the deck that we presented in February, we gave capacity and production for 2026 and 2027, and the assumptions at that point have not changed to now. If you look at on a production basis, we said for 2027 will be around about 19 GW to 20.5 GW. 19.7 GW, 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 geographical location of product.
Yeah. Ben, on the Tesla, you know, as it relates to our TOPCon patent, what we do know is that any of the TOPCon product, and you can see by, you know, 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 they would not infringe on our IP, I guess my assumption would be there will 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, you know, licensed the IP to Talon. Talon has demonstrated a willingness to pay fair value for the technology that's enabling the product they're going to manufacture, and that's fine. We'll do that with other counterparties. If Tesla chooses to use an IP, you know, a TOPCon product that uses our IP, then we'll just enter into a commercial conversation with them and happily engage with a conversation of licensing that IP.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, and we'd be more than happy to do that. I do think it's one of the challenges that, you know, Tesla's gonna have to figure out what technology they go with and how do they get freedom to operate. IP is gonna be a significant challenge, at least in my mind, as it relates to TOPCon 'cause it's, you know, a challenge that, you know, 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. I'm 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 getting, you know, 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 CdTe. That's also why we're evolving towards perovskite as next-generation thin films. You know, 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, you know, long-term energy independence and national security. Having domestic supply chains, I think, are extremely valuable in both of those regards.
At this time, there are no further questions. This concludes today's call. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect.