In a sign of the challenges still facing even the most competitive PV manufacturers, the California-based company still swallowed a net loss of $54.7m. But that is a significant improvement both sequentially and year-on-year, and chief executive Tom Werner called it a “strong quarterly performance”.

SunPower hauled in revenues of $635.4m in the first quarter of 2013, slightly lower than last quarter, but with a significantly higher gross margin (9.3%).

SunPower,