First Solar, Inc.

First Solar, Inc. is an American photovoltaic manufacturer that produces cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film solar modules — the only scaled thin-film technology competing against the crystalline silicon panels that dominate the global solar industry. The company generated $5.2 billion in revenue and $1.5 billion in net income in fiscal 2025, operating six manufacturing facilities across the United States, India, Malaysia, and Vietnam with approximately 7,900 employees.

The story here is one of an industrial franchise whose economics have been transformed by American industrial policy. First Solar survived two decades as a technology outlier in a brutal commodity industry, producing solid margins in good years and absorbing losses in bad ones. The Inflation Reduction Act's Section 45X manufacturing credit changed the arithmetic: $1.6 billion flowed through the income statement in FY2025 alone, turning what was historically a mid-single-digit margin business into one posting 30%-plus operating margins. The question is what happens when those credits begin phasing down in 2030 — and whether the company's technology roadmap, tariff-protected U.S. manufacturing base, and contracted backlog can replace policy-driven earnings with structurally higher profitability.

This file turns on a single judgment: how much of First Solar's current earnings power is durable, and how much is a policy arbitrage with a known expiration date. The company's $14.4 billion contracted backlog, CuRe technology transition, and the widening trade-policy wall against Chinese crystalline silicon competition all argue for durability. The 7% ex-45X module gross margin reported in Q1 2026, a $324 million lawsuit against a former top customer, and a backlog that has contracted from 68.5 GW to 47.9 GW in nine months argue for caution.