Ballard Power reports Q3 EPS (14c), consensus (6c)

Reports Q3 revenue $21.3M, consensus $26.46M. "We made important customer progress across our verticals during Q3, while also advancing our global manufacturing strategy and product cost reduction initiatives," said CEO Randy MacEwen. "Our total order backlog grew 11% from last quarter to a total of $102M, with Europe now contributing over half of our total backlog. As part of our ‘local for local’ global manufacturing strategy, we announced our plan to invest $130 million in a new MEA manufacturing facility in Shanghai, with an annual production capacity of approximately 13 million MEAs, which can supply approximately 20,000 fuel cell engines. With the facility planned to be in operation in 2025 to support anticipated growth in MEA demand, this investment is expected to reduce MEA manufacturing costs, align with China’s fuel cell value chain localization policy, and position Ballard more strongly in the large China market…We are running ahead of our cost reduction targets which we expect to enable significant gross margin expansion in our long-term financial plan…This quarter our revenue and gross margin were $21.3M and (22)%, respectively. As previously communicated, we continue to see a challenging gross margin picture which we expect to persist through 2023 until our volume ramps and our product cost reduction initiatives move into production. We exited the quarter with a strong balance sheet to support our growth strategy."