First Solar, Inc. (FSLR)
Q3 2009 Earnings Call
October 28, 2009 4:30 p.m. ET

Executives

Larry Polizzotto – Vice President of Investor Relations
Robert J. Gillette – Chief Executive Officer
Jens Meyerhoff – Chief Financial Officer
Bruce Sohn – President
Michael J. Ahearn – Executive Chairman

Analysts

Steve O’Rourke – Deutsche Bank
Sanjay Shrestha – Lazard Capital Markets
Robert Stone – Cowen & Company
Steven Milunovich – BofA Merrill Lynch
Timothy Arcuri – Citigroup
Brian Gamble – Simmons & Company
Satya Kumar – Credit Suisse
(Carnie Wayne) – Piper Jaffray
Stephen Chin – UBS
John Hardy – BroadPoint AmTech
Kelly Dougherty – Macquarie
Colin Rusch – Thinkequity Partners
Ramesh Misra – Brigantine Advisors
Mark Bachman – Pacific Crest Securities

Presentation

Operator

Good day, everyone and welcome to First Solar 2009 Earnings Conference Call. This call is being webcast live on the investor section of First Solar’s website at www.firstsolar.com. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. And as a reminder, today’s call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Larry Polizzotto, Vice President of Investor Relations for First Solar, Incorporated. Mr. Polizzotto, you may begin.

Larry Polizzotto – Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining First Solar’s fiscal third quarter 2009 conference call. Today after the market closed, the company issued a press release announcing its third quarter 2009 financial results. If you did not receive a copy of the press release, you can obtain one from the Investor section of First Solar’s website at firstsolar.com.

In addition, First Solar has posted the third quarter presentation for this call, key quarterly statistics and historical data and financial and operating performance on our IR website. We will be discussing the presentation during the call and the webcast.

An audio replay of this conference call will also be available approximately two hours after the conclusion of this call. The audio replay will be available until Monday, November the 2nd, 2009, at 11:59 Eastern Daylight Time, and can be accessed by dialing 888-203-1112 if you are calling within the United States or 719-457-0820 if you are calling outside the United States and entering ID 1744958.

A replay of this webcast will be available on the investor section of the company’s website approximately two hours after the conclusion of this call and remain available for 90 calendar days. Investors may access the webcast on the investor section of the company’s website at firstsolar.com. If you’re a subscriber of FactSet and Thomson One, you can also obtain a written transcript within two hours.

With me on the call today are Mike Ahearn, Executive Chairman; Rob Gillette, Chief Executive Officer; Jens Meyerhoff, Chief Financial Officer; and Bruce Sohn, President of First Solar. Mike will begin with an overview of the company’s third quarter achievements, followed by a market and business update.

Jens will then provide you with the third quarter 2009 operational and financial results and provide an update to our guidance for 2009. We will then open up the call for questions.

During the Q&A period, as a courtesy of those individuals seeking to ask questions, we ask that participants limit themselves to one question. The company has allocated approximately one hour for today’s call. I want to remind you that all numbers reported and discussed in today’s call are based on U.S. Generally accepted accounting principles unless otherwise noted.

Now, I’d like to make a brief statement regarding the forward-looking remarks that you may hear on today’s call. During the course of this call, the company will make projections and other comments and forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities law. The forward-looking statements in this call are based on current information and expectations, are subject to uncertainties and changes in circumstances and do not constitute guarantees of future performance.

Those statements involve a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those statements, including the risks as described in the company’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. First Solar assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this call with respect to announcements described herein.

Before I turn the call over to Michael Ahearn, I would like to mention that during the fourth quarter of 2009, the company will meet with investors at the following conferences and road shows. First, there will be an East Coast Road Show to New York City, Boston and Baltimore November the 3rd through the 6th. Then there will be a Texas Road Show to Dallas, Houston and Austin on November the 6th through the 18th. We will be attending the Credit Suisse Technology Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona on December the 2nd. and then a Los Angeles Road Show on December the 3rd, and then a Barclays Capital Growth -- Global Technology Conference in San Francisco 12/8 through the 9th.

And then in addition, First Solar plans on announcing -- hosting a conference call on December the 16th with investors to communicate our 2010 annual guidance. We will provide more details on this later. It is now my pleasure to introduce Mike Ahern, Executive Chairman of First Solar. Mike?