SolarEdge Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:SEDG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Kasope Harrison : And then my follow-up question, I just wanted to follow up once again on your cost business on U.S. resi. To the extent that you can, can you give us a sense of how you resi megawatt in compares to the prior year, your Q1 guidance compared to the prior year? And then maybe you can provide some color on U.S. channel inventories for inverters? And that’s it for me.

Zvi Lando : In terms of inventory. So as a result of what I described, we’re in the fourth quarter, where typically there is decline in sell-out from distributors and originators, the decline was more significant than in the past. So inventories are higher than they were in the last few quarters. And as I said, we’re for a first glance of what’s going on in the beginning of 2023, the sellout is improving, and exactly when and how it will reach expected levels and drain a little bit of this over inventory. We’re not were not positive. We — in terms of the expectations for North America residential in the first quarter relative to last year, I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, but it’s probably in the flattish regime, but we can check later on and provide more specific.

Ronen Faier : And I would like just to add one more thing, Kas and this is the fact that as mentioned, I think during this call, Today, we’re more limited on our ability to supply rather than the demand that we see. So the backlog that we see in front of us in all regions is the backlog that really allows us to very, I would say, comfortly navigate between various regions. And if we see that, for example, the U.S. market is going to be softer than expected in Q1 or Q2, the demand that we see in Europe and rest of the world is always higher. So I would say that here, the guidance is less related to regions that we can ship to, but rather into how much of what quantity of products we can actually manufacture and deliver throughout the quarter. So really, the deviation between U.S. or Europe is not very much impacting our guidance at this point of time.

Operator: And we’ll move next to Maheep Mandloi with Credit Suisse.

Maheep Mandloi : Maybe if you could just talk about on the U.S. market. What are you seeing from your end customers as they switch from loans to leases? How does that impact the pricing power for you going forward? And maybe in that same base, if you could talk about your new deal with Freedom Forever. Is that exclusive? Is that an indicator of you partnering with the large installers to markets you have? And then follow up.

Zvi Lando : Yes. Maheep, I’m not sure we heard it well, but it was the question referring to the — our position within small and large installers in the United States.

Maheep Mandloi : That’s right, yes. As like they shift from loan to leases. Yes.

Zvi Lando : Sorry, Maheep, we lost you.

Maheep Mandloi : Sorry about that. Just curious on your mix and small and large installers and especially as we see a move from loans to leases this year.

Zvi Lando : Yes. I think, as you know, traditionally, our position with the large installation companies and PPOs is historically very strong in the United States and stronger than our position in the long tail. We also as many expect that segment to be stronger in the future due to some of the mechanisms of the IRA, that’s part of the reason that we are also positive about our outlook in North America. And that said, we are still investing a lot of effort in increasing our share also in the long tail. But for a variety of reasons, historically and currently, and we believe in the future, we do have strong share and position with large installation companies and Freedom Forever, is an example, yes.