SHLS May 5, 2026

Shoals Technologies Group Q1 2026 Earnings Call - Record Backlog and Raised Guidance Signal Solar Demand Resilience

Summary

Shoals Technologies Group reported a strong start to 2026, with Q1 revenue of $140.6 million, up 75% year-over-year, driven by robust demand in the U.S. utility-scale solar market. The company achieved a record backlog and awarded orders (BLAO) of $758 million, an 18% increase year-over-year, with $628 million slated for shipment through Q1 2027. Adjusted EBITDA reached $21.1 million, growing 56% year-over-year, and management raised full-year revenue and EBITDA guidance. Gross margins came in at 29.6%, slightly below expectations due to product mix, tariffs, freight costs, and factory transition inefficiencies, but executives characterized Q1 as the margin trough, with sequential improvement expected as the new facility move concludes and operational efficiencies are realized.

Beyond core solar, Shoals is making strategic inroads into battery energy storage (BESS) and international markets. BESS BLAO grew to $75 million, fueled by a partnership with ON.energy for AI data center power infrastructure, while international bookings approached $100 million, led by Australia. The company also highlighted progress on its next-generation data center product, with a market launch and patent filing completed, though revenue is not expected until 2027. Management emphasized that while tariffs and freight create near-term headwinds, the IEEPA tariff repeal and Section 232 adjustments are viewed as net neutral to positive. With a lean balance sheet, net debt at 1.6x adjusted EBITDA, and strong cash flow generation, Shoals is positioned to scale operations and capture growing demand in both traditional solar and emerging energy storage markets.

Key Takeaways

  • Revenue surged 75% year-over-year to $140.6 million, beating guidance and reflecting strong demand in the U.S. utility-scale solar market.
  • Record backlog and awarded orders (BLAO) reached $758 million, up 18% year-over-year, with $628 million scheduled for delivery through Q1 2027.
  • Adjusted EBITDA grew 56% year-over-year to $21.1 million, landing at the high end of guidance and signaling strong operating leverage.
  • Management raised full-year 2026 revenue guidance to $600–$640 million and adjusted EBITDA to $118–$132 million, citing accelerating demand and execution confidence.
  • Gross margin came in at 29.6%, slightly below expectations due to product mix, tariffs, freight costs, and factory transition inefficiencies, but Q1 is viewed as the margin trough.
  • Sequential margin improvement is expected in H2 as the new facility move completes, labor efficiencies are realized, and product mix stabilizes.
  • BESS bookings grew to $75 million, driven by AI data center projects and a partnership with ON.energy, with the first units produced in the new facility.
  • International BLAO approached $100 million, with Australia emerging as a key growth market, diversifying revenue streams beyond the U.S.
  • Tariff landscape shifts, including the repeal of IEEPA tariffs and adjustments to Section 232, are viewed as net neutral to positive for margins going forward.
  • Balance sheet remains strong with net debt at 1.6x adjusted EBITDA, and management plans to moderately expand credit facility capacity to support inventory buildup for upcoming deliveries.

Full Transcript

Christine, Conference Call Operator: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Shoals Technologies Group’s first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. After today’s prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Matt Tractenberg, VP of Finance and Investor Relations. Matt, please go ahead.

Matt Tractenberg, VP of Finance and Investor Relations, Shoals Technologies Group: Thank you, Christine, and thank you everyone for joining us today. Hosting the call with me is our CEO, Brandon Moss, and our CFO, Dominic Bardos. On this call, management will be making projections or other forward-looking statements based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties and should not be considered guarantees of performance. Actual results could differ materially. Those risks and uncertainties are listed for investors in our most recent SEC filings. Today’s presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures. You should refer to the information contained in the company’s first quarter press release for definitional information and reconciliations of historical non-GAAP measures to the nearest comparable GAAP financial measures. Please note that the slides you see here are available for download from the investor relations section of our website at investors.shoals.com. With that, let me turn the call over to Brandon.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Thank you, Matt, and thanks to everyone joining us on the call. First quarter revenue was above our guidance at $141 million of 75% over the prior year period. Our commercial team continued their strong performance by adding approximately $151 million of new orders in the period. This resulted in another company record backlog and awarded orders or BLAO of $758 million, an increase of almost 18% year-over-year. As of quarter end, approximately $628 million of our BLAO has shipment dates in the upcoming 4 quarters for Q1 of 2027. Quarter adjusted gross profit percentage came in slightly below our expected range at 29.6%.

This was driven by product mix, tariffs, increased freight costs, and some temporary labor inefficiencies as we train additional employees to meet the strong demand on new business lines in our factory. We believe that this is the low point of gross margin and that it will improve as we make our way through the year. SG&A, including all legal expense, was $31 million, representing 22% of revenue, a 500 basis point decline as compared to 27% last year and highlighting the operating leverage inherent in our business model. First quarter adjusted EBITDA of approximately $21 million came in at the high end of our guided range and grew 56% year-over-year. We’ve also seen some positive movement on our IP infringement case against Voltec. Last week, the International Trade Commission declined to review any contested issues in the ALJ’s initial ruling.

The commission is still expected to issue its final determination in early June, but it’s encouraging news for our shareholders and U.S. manufacturers in general. We are pleased with how the market is evolving and our competitive position of strength, and as a result, are increasing both our revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance for the year. Dominic will step through the updated guidance later in the call. Briefly turning to our various business lines. The first quarter was another strong period of growth within our core utility scale solar market. Our quote volume in the quarter exceeded $1 billion of unique projects, adding to our strong pipeline. I’m also encouraged by the progress we are making in key international markets like Australia, as evidenced by our increased quote activity and customer engagement.

International BLAO now totals almost $100 million, driving continued growth and diversification in 2027 and beyond. Our community, commercial, and industrial, or CC&I business, which remains a small piece of our overall mix, continues to perform well. Our OEM business continues to provide a stable and visible revenue stream, growing at 33% on a year-over-year basis. Finally, we added approximately $9 million to BESS BLAO in the quarter, which ended the period at $75 million. You may recall that we announced a recent partnership with ON.energy in the last quarter. ON.energy is rapidly assuming market leadership in AI data center power infrastructure with its first of a kind medium voltage AI UPS. That architecture is being deployed in what will be the largest battery project on an AI data center in the U.S.

Shoals is very proud to be a partner in this project. In Q1, we celebrated the first of these units produced in our new facility, recognizing more than $1 million in revenue and paving the way for a healthy ramp through Q2. We’re excited about increasing production and gaining visibility as we continue to build this business. Overall, the quarter played out as expected, but the year appears to be stronger than we anticipated on our February call. New orders in Q1 for 2026 delivery were very strong, and we have not seen significant project delays thus far. We are executing well, finishing the move into our new facility and expanding capacity and capabilities. The underlying demand drivers remain intact and our competitive position has strengthened. Our business is in a great place today.

Dom, I’ll hand it to you for a deeper dive into our financial performance and guidance.

Dominic Bardos, Chief Financial Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Thanks, Brandon, and greetings to everyone on the call. Revenue increased by approximately 75% year-over-year to $140.6 million. The increase was largely driven by strong demand from both new and existing customers within our core U.S. utility scale solar market. Gross profit was $41.0 million compared to $28.1 million in the prior year period, an increase of 46%. Our GAAP gross profit percentage was 29.2% and adjusted gross profit percentage was 29.6%, slightly below our expectations and impacted by product mix, higher freight costs, tariffs, and temporary labor inefficiencies as we start new lines and train new employees to meet the very strong demand we see ahead. Product mix, freight, and tariffs accounted for approximately 200 basis points of margin compression versus our anticipated outcome.

As Brandon stated, we believe this quarter is the low point for gross profit percentage. It will improve as we make our way through the year. As a reminder, our product mix plays an integral role in the gross profit percentage. That may vary from quarter to quarter. The same mix that is driving higher revenue growth and contribution dollars negatively impacts the margin percentage but delivers higher profit dollars. Ultimately, we are focused on driving incremental profit dollars through the P&L as that strategy will create shareholder value. Selling general and administrative expenses, or SG&A, was $31.0 million, or $9.3 million higher than the prior year period, driven by an additional $6.2 million of ongoing legal expenses.

This breaks down to $4.1 million related to our ITC litigation, $1.2 million related to our case against Prysmian, and a little under $1 million related to the shareholder class action suit. As you may have seen last week, we have announced a proposed settlement to the shareholder class action suit. The vast majority of the settlement is covered by insurance. Income from operations or operating profit was $7.7 million or 5.5% of revenue, growing at 79% year-over-year. This compared to $4.3 million during the prior year period. Net loss was $297,000 compared to a net loss of $282,000 during the prior year period. The net loss was driven by the class action settlement net impact of approximately $5 million.

Adjusted net income was $12.1 million, an increase of 112% as compared to $5.7 million in the prior year period. adjusted EBITDA was $21.1 million compared to $13.5 million in the prior year period, representing 56% growth year-over-year. adjusted EBITDA margin was 15% compared to 16.8% a year ago, driven primarily by the impact of product mix. Adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.07 was $0.04 higher than the prior year period. Operationally, we consumed $41.4 million of cash in the first quarter, driven by the higher inventory balances needed to satisfy the strong demand signals we are seeing in our markets.

We have taken inventory positions to protect our customer delivery timelines for the next two quarters, and we intend to reduce inventory levels throughout the back half of the year. As such, we do not currently anticipate interruptions to project delivery schedules due to the conflict in the Middle East or projected trade policies. We ended the quarter with cash and equivalents of $1.9 million and net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 1.6 times. Our net debt was $179.9 million, an increase of the prior quarter, driven by an increase in inventory in both our new BESS business and our core utility scale solar market. As we enter this period of exceptional demand, our intention is to moderately expand the capacity on our revolving credit facility.

Over time, as collections normalize with production, we will resume deployment of excess cash towards reducing the outstanding balance and maintain leverage below 2 times adjusted EBITDA. Backlog and awarded orders ended the first quarter at a record $758.0 million, a sequential increase of $10.4 million. Backlog constitutes $390.3 million of the total BLAO, providing us with confidence that the growth projections we have for the upcoming periods can be achieved. The strength of our book of business supports our decision to increase both our full year revenue and adjusted EBITDA expectations.

As of March 31st, $627.6 million of our backlog and awarded orders have planned delivery dates in the coming 4 quarters through Q1 of 2027, with the remaining $130.4 million beyond that. Turning to guidance. For the quarter ending June 30th, 2026, the company expects revenue to be in the range of $150 million-$170 million, representing 44% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. Adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $28 million-$33 million, representing 25% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. For the full year 2026, we now expect revenue to be between $600 million and $640 million, representing year-over-year growth of 30% at the midpoint.

Adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $118 million-$132 million, representing year-over-year growth of 26% at the midpoint. In addition, for the full year, we still expect cash flow from operations in the range of $65 million-$85 million, capital expenditures in the range of $20 million-$30 million, and interest expense in the range of $8 million-$12 million. With that, I’ll turn it back over to Brandon for closing remarks.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Thank you, Dominic. The U.S. market appears to be extremely resilient, and our capacity expansion could not have come at a better time in our history. We are preparing Shoals to be ready and agile in our production capabilities in a growing demand environment. We are in an exceptional position today from both a commercial and operational perspective. The strategic plan that we constructed and the process improvements we’ve implemented have begun to yield tangible results. We want to thank our shareholders and our customers for their continued trust in our employees, for their hard work and dedication. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

Christine, Conference Call Operator: We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Please limit yourself to 1 question and 1 follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your 1st question comes to the line of Philip Shen with ROTH Capital Partners. Philip, your line is now open.

Philip Shen, Analyst, ROTH Capital Partners: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Congrats on the strong results. I want to talk through the tax equity pause that we’ve read a fair amount about. Was wondering if you guys are seeing that flow through any of your business or any of your conversations. You know, maybe talk through with the healthy bookings from this quarter, do you expect that booking strength and, you know, greater than 1 book-to-bill to sustain in the quarters ahead? Thanks.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Philip Shen, good morning, and thanks for the question. Related to the tax equity piece, well aware of what’s going on in the market with some of the larger banks financing projects. I would say that we have not seen that trickle down into our order book. I think there is available financing for projects that still exist in the marketplace, and we are not seeing an impact to that, as evidenced by, you know, a really strong quote log again in Q1 of over $1 billion. That’s been, you know, really consistent with the quoting strength we’ve seen for the last few quarters, honestly. As it relates to, you know, future book-to-bill and booking strength, you know, it is always our goal to have a positive book-to-bill.

We see a lot of strength in the marketplace. The market is accelerating and not slowing. We have fortunately strung together a number of quarters now with positive book-to-bill, and that’s always our intention to do so.

Philip Shen, Analyst, ROTH Capital Partners: Great. Thanks, Brandon. Coming back to margins for a bit here, Q1 was a little bit lower. I know you guys talked about that being the low point in the year. Was wondering if you could share what like Q2 and Q3 might be heading toward with your guidance rates. You know, the EBITDA margin for Q1 was 15%, but full year is 20%, suggesting, you know, you really have to drive that much higher later in the quarters or later this year. While maintaining the EBITDA guide, you also kept cash flow from operations unchanged. I was wondering if you might be able to address kind of the some of the situation there. Thanks.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Yeah. Thanks, Phil. Multi-part question there. I’ll tackle the front and maybe turn it to Dominic. As it relates to gross margin, again, we commented we had about a 200 basis point impact versus our expectations. The biggest driver of that for us is always product mix. Obviously, we had, as we’re moving our facility from our former 3 sites into our new factory, we’ve got some disruption related to that move, a little bit more so that is anticipated. We moved about 250 pieces of equipment or slightly more over a 60-day period in the quarter. Obviously, that led to some level of disruption. Dom, maybe pass it to you to expand upon that.

Dominic Bardos, Chief Financial Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: I think, Philip, one of the things you asked was also a little bit of the pacing of what we might see from margins. We do expect that the first half, ’cause we’re still moving into the facility, so Q2 will still have lower margins. We just don’t believe it’s the low point that we saw in Q1 as we’ve been communicating. There will be a ramp in the back half as we move into the we’re gonna be completely moved into the facility, and we will also have the ability to start realizing some of the efficiencies of being in one beautiful new facility. The pacing will still be a little bit lower on the margins in Q2 and then improving, but everything should be sequential improvement quarter-over-quarter.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: With regards to the cash flows from operations, you know, our working capital, we took very specific inventory positions to make sure that we can meet the demand that we see in the coming quarters. We will have the ability to reduce that. I would characterize that as a timing issue. We do see very strong business. We see very positive cash flows this year, and our ability to drive that cash is heightened this year because we’re not doing some of those large things like the warranty remediation, which is largely in our rearview mirror at this point. I would characterize that as a timing issue. We’re very confident in the year and very excited at the book of business that we have in front of us. Thanks, Phil.

Philip Shen, Analyst, ROTH Capital Partners: Great. Thank you. Thank you both.

Matt Tractenberg, VP of Finance and Investor Relations, Shoals Technologies Group: Christine, next question, please.

Christine, Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies. Julien Demers, your line is now open.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Analyst, Jefferies: Thank you, operator. Very kind. Good morning, team. Thank you guys for the time. Appreciate it. Look, maybe just to kick things off, I would love to hear a little bit more about the battery BESS adoption trends as well as any other end market adoption here. Again, I know the street’s very fixated here on your quarterly BESS trend. Obviously stronger start to the year here overall, but I’m curious on how you would suggest cadence and adoption’s going given what we’re seeing in that end market.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Julien, good morning. Appreciate the question. We are very excited about our BESS business. As we indicated in the prepared remarks, we started our BESS line in Q1 and recognized about $1 million of revenue. Those specific units again are going to the data center market, which we’re very bullish about, and we will be on, you know, the largest battery-paired AI data center site in the country, which is very exciting for us here at Shoals. What is also exciting for us in the first quarter is we added $9 million to our book of business related to BESS.

Maybe to peel that back a little bit, as you may recall, we’ve got three specific end market use cases for our Recombiner products, one being data centers, two being grid firming, and three being your common solar and storage paired applications on our traditional solar sites. About two-thirds or more of our bookings in the quarter came from grid firming and solar plus storage applications, which is exciting for us as we are seeing penetration across all three markets. As we’ve talked about in the past, we see the data center AI space as being probably the strongest and largest driver of the product line. It’s also great for us to show strength in the other markets as well.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Analyst, Jefferies: Got it. Not to needle too much on this margin backdrop, but you lowered the margin guide here slightly here. What’s driving that here? Can you comment on the logistics side of things, the tariff angle? I know you commented a little bit here, but I just want to make sure I’m hearing that right, especially given the ramp that my peer here was talking about a second ago. Can you just comment about what you’re seeing on that margin guide? I think people are very fixated here on the cadence of the year and ensuring that you see that overall recovery materialize.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Yeah, there’s a few things that I want to point out, Julien. First is that we’re still moving into the facility, and we did have some disruptions and inefficiencies in Q1. They were a little bit worse than we anticipated with the disruption of all the movement. We’re completing that move in Q2. Also with the unrest in the Middle East or the conflict, we are seeing pressure on oil prices and the derivative products from oil. Freight charges are certainly higher, and some of our cost of goods are certainly gonna have the potential to be impacted. Some of the pricing has already been set.

Some of those things, you know, it’s kind of like when things change in a rapid fashion, once we’ve already agreed to a price, we might have some times when we can’t quite recover the full cost of goods increases. We want to just be, you know, cautious and give a prudent guide with margins. We do see improvement every quarter, as we mentioned sequentially, and we’re very optimistic that the product mix will be favorable for us for the balance of the year.

Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Analyst, Jefferies: Okay. All right, I’ll leave it there. Thank you guys very much.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Thank you, Julien. Appreciate it. Christine, next question.

Christine, Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Praneeth Satish with Wells Fargo. Praneeth, your line is now open.

Praneeth Satish, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Thanks. Maybe not to belabor the margin question too much, but you mentioned 200 basis points in Q1 from product mix, tariff, and freight. You also had this impact from moving equipment to the new facility. Maybe if you could just kind of isolate how much of the margin was weighed down because of that transition to the new facility. Also on product mix, of the 200 basis points, how much is product mix and kind of what’s the outlook there? Because I assume the tariff and freight, those will kind of persist potentially for a few more quarters. Just kind of trying to isolate the variable pieces.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Yeah. Praneeth, that’s a pretty packed question there, let me break it down a little bit. Of the 200 basis points that we saw, you know, we kind of bucketed it into about 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 of some of the major drivers. We definitely had some tariff impact that was still a carryover. The IEEPA reduction is certainly gonna help us. The Section 232 tariff environment, we’ve now actually encompassed that into our pricing. That shouldn’t be as big of a drag going forward. We do still have some inventory that has capitalized tariffs in it. We do still have to burn through that in the 2nd quarter.

Once again, that informed our second quarter margin guide. With regards to the freight, we did have some air freight, and the cost of fuel for freight has gone up, so we had some surcharges there. Fundamentally, these things are largely transitory or the point where we can now factor all that into the pricing. As I mentioned with Julien’s question, sometimes when things change rapidly, we may already have guaranteed pricing or contract pricing, and we can’t quite go back and recover all of that. The margin issue aside, we’re very pleased to be raising our EBITDA guide for the year. We’re gonna continue to get the leverage on our OpEx, we’re very excited about our book of business.

Praneeth Satish, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Gotcha. That’s very helpful. Maybe just switching gears, to your other kind of product and development here, the data center BLA product. Has anything changed there in terms of timing for UL certification? I know we’re not gonna see sales this year, probably next year, but I guess when should we anticipate potentially seeing some bookings? Do you think it’s possible we could see something towards the end of this year? Just trying to get an update on that. Thank you.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Praneeth, great question. We did a market launch of that product at Data Center World a few weeks ago, which we are very excited about. We have filed our patent portfolio for that particular product, which is also very exciting for us. There’s a lot of interest in the product right now. As you mentioned, we do not expect to recognize revenue in calendar year 2026. Our goal this year is to have proof of concept operating live in a facility, and we are working towards that. Bookings in 2026 potentially. We’re talking to a variety of developers about including that product in their portfolio of projects, but nothing on the books as of yet.

I would probably say in 2026 bookings would be minimal for that product line, as we begin to ramp it in 2027. Exciting product, and really strong market feedback thus far.

Praneeth Satish, Analyst, Wells Fargo: Thanks, Praneeth.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Yep. Christine?

Christine, Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer & Co. Colin, your line is now open.

Colin Rusch, Analyst, Oppenheimer & Co: Thanks so much, guys. Could you give us an update on sales traction outside of the U.S. on both, you know, solar and BESS? Then if there’s anything, you know, in particular that you guys see you can, you know, optimize from an OpEx perspective, love to get a little bit more detail on that side.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Thanks, Colin. Good morning. We are excited about our prospects internationally. Our backlog and awarded orders continues to rise. We reached $100 million now to date after actually deploying 3 projects last year. We are continuing to generate bookings to offset not only shipments, but grow that order book, which is exciting for us. Our prospects in Australia seem like a fantastic opportunity for us. The pipeline is very strong. That’s where some of the additions to the order book have come from. You know, that has been a key priority for us to diversify end markets, not only product. We’re pleased with the progress thus far. Your other question was.

Colin Rusch, Analyst, Oppenheimer & Co: OpEx

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: around operating expenses, I believe. Colin, specifically what are you looking for?

Colin Rusch, Analyst, Oppenheimer & Co: Okay.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Yeah.

Colin Rusch, Analyst, Oppenheimer & Co: You know, we’re seeing a number of folks able to optimize using some AI, for, you know, just cleaner, more efficient OpEx, and just wondering if there’s some of that you’re gonna be able to start flowing through the organization over the next year or 2.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Yeah. It’s a great question. We absolutely are engaged with some trials of artificial intelligence and what we’re trying to do to improve some of our systems and operations. Our focus initially is actually with manufacturing and commercial as our process flow. We have some opportunities there that we’re working with. We are in discussions with our board all the time about where we can improve our processes, which are largely manual, as a small company is growing. We are looking to that. I would suggest that our SG&A is relatively lean. We don’t have a tremendous number of salaried headcount. As you see in our filings, it’s less than 200 people that are salaried in this business.

I’m not looking to AI to truly rip out SG&A expense as much as I am to enable growth going forward. We see significant growth going forward for this company. We wanna make sure that we’re positioned to scale, that’s truly where we’re gonna focus our AI efforts, at least initially.

Colin Rusch, Analyst, Oppenheimer & Co: Perfect. Thanks, guys.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Thanks, Colin. Christine?

Christine, Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Mark Strouse with J.P. Morgan. Mark, your line is now open.

Mark Strouse, Analyst, J.P. Morgan: Yes. Good morning. Thank you very much for taking our questions. I think on the last call you talked about there were some, I believe they were BESS projects that you weren’t sure if they were gonna hit in late 4Q or maybe early 2027. Has that timing now firmed up, and is that part of the guidance rates here, or should we think about that as a potential catalyst for further upside if that does firm up as we go along here?

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Mark, appreciate the call. We do have project visibility in 2026 and 2027 that is incorporated in our current backlog and awarded orders.

You know, as mentioned earlier, the significant driver for our growth in that business is going to be around the data center AI landscape. Obviously, we’ve got visibility to a quote funnel and are confident in our ability to add to our order book in that particular use case. We are very excited about the future of battery energy storage products here at Shoals. We have built a manufacturing line to handle and provide a significant amount of capacity for us. More growth to come in that space for us in the future.

Dominic Bardos, Chief Financial Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Mark, I may just add that, you know, as we gave a guide last quarter, we did talk about, you know, there are some projects in Q4 that still have to be firmed up. What I would characterize our raise on the revenue side is really due to book and turn business in the core solar markets. We’ve seen some incredible strength of demand, and that’s truly what’s driving that. I just wanna position that 1 because it’s a fantastic market for us. We do still have some potential for projects to hit in Q4 from the BESS side, but that wasn’t the preliminary driver of the raise.

Mark Strouse, Analyst, J.P. Morgan: Okay. Very helpful. Thank you. Then, you’ve had several questions already about kind of the margin trajectory this year. Dom, I just wanna give you the opportunity to kind of talk about beyond this year. Are you still viewing 2026 as the trough year?

Dominic Bardos, Chief Financial Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Well, certainly it is because of all the move disruptions and starting a BESS line from scratch and training all the new employees. I mean, those are some transitory headwinds that will get done in this year. You know, we think we’re a very attractive business, driving gross margins in the 30s like we are. It’s a fantastic business. We’re gonna continue to get OpEx leverage. We’ll see EBITDA margin expansion and much higher cash flow contributions next year. I’m very excited about next year. While we’re not fully guiding to that, we do believe this is a trough year on the gross margin side. We’re really looking forward to expanded operating profit margins and EBITDA margins in 2027 and beyond.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Thanks, Mark.

Mark Strouse, Analyst, J.P. Morgan: Thank you.

Christine, Conference Call Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Sean Milligan with Needham & Company. Sean, your line is now open.

Brian Lee, Analyst, Goldman Sachs0: Good morning. Thank you for taking the questions. To start off, I was curious, Brandon, if you could provide some more context around, like, your BESS quoting pipeline in terms of sizing of projects, specifically on the AI data center side. I guess you’ve been in the market now for a few quarters there, and I was curious if there’s any change to what you’re seeing in terms of the size of projects you’re quoting.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Yeah. Thanks, Sean. you know, I think we’ve communicated in the past that I guess first, bookings for this particular product line will be a bit lumpy because of the size of the projects, right? I don’t think our assumptions have changed at all. where we look to use our 4000A Recombiner product line and data center AI applications, you know, that market is probably about, you know, $50 million-$60 million per gigawatt. we’ve got great visibility to pipeline and also future projects. Again, you know, very bullish about our prospects to penetrate that market, and very excited about our partnership with ON.energy, who we believe is taking market leadership in pairing battery storage with these large scale AI centers.

couldn’t be more excited about the prospects of that business.

Brian Lee, Analyst, Goldman Sachs0: Okay. Just to follow up on revenue contribution in the quarter, with C&I international BESS, and you kinda gave the BESS number, but I’m curious, like, how much revenue is now coming from kinda outside the core BLA business?

Dominic Bardos, Chief Financial Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: We have The OEM business was second to our domestic utility scale solar projects in the quarter. BESS, we were very pleased to have started the line early. As you recall from last year, we were guiding that we didn’t expect to have revenue in Q1 at all because of our timeline. We’re very pleased to have gotten that line stood up and operational as quickly as we did. Largely, the Q1 revenue stream was utility scale solar that’s domestic, followed by our OEM business, which had 33% growth, I believe, year-over-year. Other than that, we did not have a lot of international revenue and the CC&I still remains a relatively small portion, we do have CC&I sales every quarter.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Tom, maybe to add to that just, you know, the focus on our domestic solar markets. You know, just to reiterate, we believe we are operating in an unbelievably strong market environment, and I think our market leadership position as a preferred solution, you know, continues to be proven by our record backlog and awarded order growth. A lot of our growth, I know there’s a tremendous amount of focus on battery energy storage, but as we’ve communicated in the past, our goal is to diversify both products and markets, and we’re doing that. What is very exciting for us, in 2026 is about a fifth of our revenue will come from new products. BESS is obviously included in that number, but many of the new products are in our traditional solar space.

We’ve put a big focus on accelerating innovation here at Shoals and that is playing out with increased bookings and obviously revenue recognition for 2026. Again, a lot of focus on BESS, always a lot of questions about BESS. I wanna reiterate the strength of our domestic utility scale solar business.

Dominic Bardos, Chief Financial Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Thanks, Sean.

Christine, Conference Call Operator: Just a reminder, if you’d like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. Our next question comes from the line of Vikram Bagri with Citi. Vikram, your line is now open.

Brian Lee, Analyst, Goldman Sachs1: Hey, good morning, everyone. I have a sort of like a 2-part question. I think last quarter you mentioned spooling had a meaningful impact on margins. I was wondering if you can share what the run rate impact of spooling was on this quarter’s margin and what % of customers have requested spooling? Related to that, you know, obviously, tariffs, logistics, and commodity prices have changed a lot since last quarter. Our understanding was that tariffs baked into the previous guidance were conservative. I was wondering if you can also identify where you see some puts and takes in this ever-changing environment in terms of tariffs, logistics, and commodity prices.

If the current environment is fully baked in, or do you see some level of sort of like downside or upside from these three factors? Thank you.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Vik, good morning. Great question. We have talked about spooling in the past, probably more generally just packaging in general. There are different packaging requirements for some of our newer customers and also product mix related to those, specific to our Long Tail BLA product. That is adding significant revenue potential for us in the future and is being recognized still in 2026. It adds, you know, a half a cent to eight tenths of a cent a watt to our projects, which is exciting for us to be able to expand our wallet share. We do have some packaging costs that are baked baked into to the guidance for the year. I’ll let maybe Dominic expand on that.

Before I do, I’ll comment on your question about tariffs. Obviously, the tariff landscape has changed dramatically the last, I don’t know, 18 months now. For us to try to predict what that’s gonna look like in the future, you know, we’d be fools to try to do so. Having said that, the change with IEEPA and Section 232, we view as a net neutral to positive change for us. And that is being baked into our thoughts about margin and guidance for the rest of the year. Dom, maybe I’ll turn it to you for specifics around packaging and margin.

Dominic Bardos, Chief Financial Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Yeah. As Brandon mentioned, Vik, it’s largely when I talk about product mix, that’s where it’s coming from. Not all of our products require spooling, but the longer run products do. Things like the Long Tail BLA, it’s incorporated in the margin. When I talk about product mix and a large % of customers now have preferred the Long Tail solution to centralize their, your load break disconnects by the inverters, that is something that increases our share of wallet, but it carries a lower margin %. The spooling cost, the packaging, the handling of all that is incorporated into that, but that’s why the product mix is so important to the margin %. It is driving increased flow through $, which is fantastic. We’re to keep doing that business.

We’re responding to the changing environment of our customers, what they’re looking for, and we now have a full suite of products to really meet those needs. Things like our SuperJumper, which may have been originally developed for international markets, are really showing some popularity here in the United States as well. Once again, you have much longer runs. We’ve factored all that in. It’s part of our product mix. That’s why I always caution folks when we talk about a % of margin, we need to kind of consider where the mix is going as well.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Thanks, Vik.

Brian Lee, Analyst, Goldman Sachs1: Got it. Understood.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Christine-

Christine, Conference Call Operator: Brian.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Yeah, I think we have one last question from Brian. Yes?

Christine, Conference Call Operator: Yes, we do. Brian Lee, with Goldman Sachs. This will be our last question. Brian, your line is now open.

Brian Lee, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for squeezing me in here. Sorry, I dialed in a little bit late. Not sure if you covered some of these things. Maybe just on the guidance, you know, kudos on the strong execution here to start the year and for the revenue and margin uplift. You know, just the EBITDA guides up a bit less than revenue guide at the midpoint for 2026 in the new outlook. Is that conservatism or are you seeing more mix shift issues or incremental tariffs than originally expected? Just curious. Maybe this is nitpicking, the, you know, EBITDA uptick in the guidance is a little bit more tempered than the revenue outlook. Any color there would be appreciated.

Dominic Bardos, Chief Financial Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Sure, Brian. We’ve covered a little bit of this. I’ll repeat a few of the things that are driving that. First and foremost, product mix is certainly driving that. We are seeing popularity of some of the new products, which do have a lower margin percentage and flow through. While revenue is going to be increased, the margin percentage is not going to be quite as high. We are seeing a little bit of disruption in our move into the new facility here. It was a little bit more than we anticipated and allowed for as we’re moved over. I don’t remember, Brandon, 200 machines or.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: 250+ machines in 60 days.

Dominic Bardos, Chief Financial Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Yeah. We’re still moving into the facility this quarter. So a little bit of disruption there, and we are expecting to see, with our mix anticipation for the rest of the year, some uptick in gross margin as well. There were some reasons why we did that. We also have two trials set for later this summer in August. With legal expenses, I have learned to be a little bit cautious on the estimations. We want to make sure we represent the shareholders properly in our cases, and if that means experts and additional legal expense, we’re gonna cover that. One of those cases is not adjusted out. It’s our IP case, it’s part of our earnings.

We just wanna make sure that we give a good cautious number, that allows us to meet our expectations for you.

Brian Lee, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Yep. Fair enough. Makes sense. I’m sure you covered a little bit of this, or maybe you covered all of it. Just with respect to tariffs, can you level set us as to, you know, what tariffs you are specifically subject to starting the year off, you know, Section 232, copper, steel, aluminum, et cetera. Does the April 3rd ruling on kind of the changing thresholds impact you? Again, maybe level set us as to are you importing copper from foreign sources, and what percent of the BOM, and is that impacting your margin outlook for this year, or are you contemplating any mitigation efforts this year or into next year?

Just trying to get a, you know, a level set on the copper exposure here, if you could speak to that a bit.

Dominic Bardos, Chief Financial Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Sure. Sure, Brian. I’ll jump in on that one. There’s a few questions in there. Let me unpack it. Yeah, for the first couple months of the year, we still had IEEPA, and those, of course, were stop collected at the end of February, around the 24th or so of February. That right now is gonna be a favorable tariff environment. With regards to Section 232, yes, there was a couple things. We do have a very wide book of suppliers, approved vendors, some of which are international in nature and are subject to Section 232 import tariffs, both on the aluminum and copper side. We do work with customers on some things. If they have a preference, we can certainly go for certain domestic suppliers.

If they have a preference for international, we can do that as well. We are subject to Section 232’s. Now, as the rules changed, and the tariff rate went down, it’s also now on the full purchase price. Net, net, it should be slightly favorable for us in terms of how these tariffs are calculated. It is a very dynamic situation. We certainly appreciate your question. It makes it very difficult to truly know how to operate that. Brandon, is there anything else you wanna add on the tariff front?

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Yeah. Just maybe something to point out, as it relates to the tariff landscape, those tariffs impact even our domestic supply base, right? Like us, most suppliers have a very diversified and international supply base themselves. Those tariffs may be impacting our raw material inputs even on domestic supply sources. Obviously, as you guys know, it’s been a challenging, you know, again, 18 months or so, with the tariff landscape. I think we’re navigating it quite well. I think what is probably most important is with the repeal of the IEEPA tariffs and now the change to Section 232, we do see that as a net neutral to positive impact for Shoals in the back half of the year.

Obviously, caveating that with unless something else changes. I think we’re navigating it well, Brian, and I appreciate the question.

Dominic Bardos, Chief Financial Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Thanks, Brian. Christine, I think that that’s gonna be the last question that we take today.

Christine, Conference Call Operator: Absolutely. We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Matt for closing remarks.

Matt Tractenberg, VP of Finance and Investor Relations, Shoals Technologies Group: Yeah. Thank you, Christine. I wanna note to our audience that we have a very active IR calendar through June. Those events are listed on our investor section of our website. If you’re attending conferences, you wanna meet with us, please let us know. We’re happy to. If we can help further, just reach out to [email protected] with any questions. Thanks for joining us today, everybody. Have a great day.

Brandon Moss, Chief Executive Officer, Shoals Technologies Group: Thanks all.

Christine, Conference Call Operator: This concludes today’s call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.