Jul. 23--SunPower, the San Jose solar manufacturer, on Thursday reported stronger than expected second-quarter revenue of $298 million, compared with $214 million in the first quarter and $383 million a year ago.

The company reported profit of $24.2 million, or 24 cents a share; excluding certain one-time charges, profit was 26 cents a share.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected the company to lose 2 cents a share on sales of $263 million. Excluding one-time charges, analysts expected a 13-cent profit per share.

But compared with a year ago, profit was down 22 percent from $31.2 million.

"We are encouraged by the results," Tom Werner, SunPower's chief executive, said in a conference call. "We're starting to see added positive movement in the residential and commercial segment, especially in California."

The results surprised some analysts. John Segrich, portfolio manager for the Gabelli SRI Green Fund, said "the expectation in the market was that they would be more greatly impacted by declining prices than they have been."

Other analysts had been more optimistic. In a July 16 report, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Al Kaschalk wrote that he expects the recently announced financing program arrangement between SunPower and Wells Fargo to fund up to $100 million in SunPower commercial-scale solar systems to be one of many such arrangements that could begin to ease funding into the U.S. solar market.

Stephen

Chin, an analyst with UBS, had upgraded the stock in June to "buy" from "neutral" based on the belief that the U.S. residential solar segment is likely to double in 2010 to 340 megawatts, given lower solar module prices, an uncapped 30 percent investment tax credit available, plus generous state level subsidies -- such as California has under its CSI program. He also believes the company will win more utility customers.

SunPower stock rose $4.67, or 19 percent, to $29.51 in after-hours trading.

Contact Tracy Seipel at 408-920-5343.

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