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Sunrun (RUN) Q2 EPS Jumps 95%

Key Points

  • GAAP EPS of $1.07 in Q2 2025 exceeded the analyst estimate of -$0.09, reflecting a significant positive GAAP earnings surprise.

  • Contracted net value creation reached a record $376 million in Q2 2025, This represented a 316% increase from the prior year.

  • The storage attachment rate reached an all-time high of 70% in Q2 2025, driving increases in value metrics and subscriber growth.

Sunrun (NASDAQ:RUN), a leading U.S. residential solar and battery storage company, posted its second-quarter results on August 6, 2025. Revenue (GAAP) was $569.3 million, exceeding the $559.4 million GAAP estimate. The quarter saw record contracted value creation, but Cash Generation (non-GAAP) was $27 million, down from $56 million in Q1 2025. Overall, the period showed stronger-than-forecast operational performance, margin improvement, and rapid growth in energy storage deployments.

MetricQ2 2025Q2 2025 EstimateQ2 2024Y/Y Change
EPS$1.07($0.09)$0.5594.5%
Revenue$569.3 million$559.4 millionN/AN/A
Cash Generation (Non-GAAP)$27 million$217 million(87.6 % decrease)
Contracted Net Value Creation$376 million$90 million317.8%
Subscriber Additions28,82324,98415.4%

Source: Analyst estimates provided by FactSet. Management expectations based on management's guidance, as provided in Q1 2025 earnings report.

Understanding Sunrun's Business and Key Drivers

Sunrun provides residential solar energy systems and home battery storage to households across the United States. Its core products let customers lock in predictable energy costs, often with zero-upfront payment options. The company stands out by offering home solar coupled with batteries, letting homeowners generate, store, and sell back excess electricity for greater savings and backup power during outages.

Recent strategy has centered on three critical areas: a multi-channel distribution approach, battery storage integration, and optimizing value under shifting regulatory and supply chain conditions. Success depends on Sunrun’s ability to grow subscribers, manage costs, and capture value from favorable government incentives, like federal tax credits for renewable energy. At the same time, it must adapt to changing tariffs, local regulations, and increased competition.

Quarterly Highlights: Growth, Margins, and New Initiatives

The quarter’s standout data was the sharp increase in contracted net value creation. This metric, which reflects the estimated net economic value from new subscriber agreements, reached $376 million—representing an increase of 316% from the prior year. Margin expansion was substantial as well, with the upfront net subscriber value margin up by 17 percentage points compared to Q2 2024. These improvements occurred even as supply chain costs rose for batteries and other equipment, underscoring effective cost control.

Sunrun continued to ramp up battery storage installations at pace. Seventy percent of system installations included home batteries, up from 54% in Q2 2024, marking a record for the company. Over half of all new customers chose to add storage, as Sunrun's Storage Attachment Rate reached 70%. The company’s total installed storage capacity exceeded 3.2 gigawatt-hours as of the end of Q2 2025, and more than 130,000 homes can provide 650 megawatts of peak power to local grids as part of Sunrun’s virtual power plant network as of summer 2025.

Subscriber growth also accelerated, with 28,823 net additions—a 15% year-on-year gain. The company had 941,701 total subscribers as of June 30, 2025, up 14% from June 30, 2024. Storage capacity deployed increased by 48% compared to Q2 2024, while solar capacity installed rose 18% compared to Q2 2024. However, product and system sales revenue fell 18%, reflecting a shift toward subscription-based contracts as well as changing channel mix.

Cash generation, defined here as a non-GAAP measure of cash created through ongoing business, was positive for a fifth straight quarter, totaling $27 million. Sunrun stated that continued capital market access through securitizations—raising approximately $1.4 billion in asset-backed deals year-to-date as of Q2 2025—provides balance sheet flexibility and supports future operational growth. The company also reduced parent-level (recourse) debt by $21 million during the quarter.

Product, Channel, and Market Context

Sunrun’s solar systems encompass rooftop solar panels, paired with battery storage products that provide backup power and enable “grid services.” These systems not only cut utility bills but also enable homeowners to benefit from energy price spikes through sellback programs. The Flex product, launched in select markets, lets customers size up their systems beyond current usage needs, making it easier to transition to electric vehicles or home electrification in the future. Flex generates incremental margin and recurring payments when customers’ energy consumption increases beyond their baseline contract.

The quarter marked a continued push into new partnerships, including the introduction of Tesla Electric + Sunrun Flex in Texas. This partnership offers customers fixed-rate home energy and advanced battery management, strengthening Sunrun’s value-added service offerings. Sunrun’s multi-channel approach leverages direct sales, local partner networks, and digital pathways, improving efficiency and customer choice, while supporting cost-effective channel mix even as market conditions evolve.

Risks, One-Time Events, and Regulatory Factors

Sunrun benefited from an increased weighted-average federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) realization of 42.6%, lifting margins and value creation. The company has taken actions such as “safe-harboring” equipment purchases to lock in higher ITC rates for future installations. However, management identified ongoing risk from changing tariffs and policy moves, estimating potential cost increases of 3–7% for 2025 and up to 10% in the second half of the year—mostly from batteries. Cash generation guidance was reiterated rather than raised, signaling cautious outlook due to these headwinds.

One positive regulatory development was the removal of proposed retroactive changes to net metering in California during the quarter. This provided short-term policy stability in a key solar market. The company remains active in scenario planning for legislative changes, including steps to secure favorable tax credit terms and potentially pare back activity in impacted geographic areas if needed.

Outlook and What to Watch Next

Looking ahead, Sunrun’s management raised its forecast for contracted net value creation (non-GAAP) for FY2025, now projecting $1.0–$1.3 billion, up from $650–$850 million previously. The revised outlook reflects stronger margin performance and cost optimization. Guidance for aggregate subscriber value remains at $5.7–$6.0 billion (14% growth at midpoint) for the full year, and cash generation (non-GAAP) is still forecast in the $200–$500 million range for the full year. Contracted net value creation for Q3 2025 is expected in the $275–$375 million range, with Cash Generation (non-GAAP) is projected at $50–$100 million for Q3 2025.

Despite raising value creation targets, the unchanged cash generation forecast signals management’s caution regarding potential changes in tariffs, supply costs, and key federal incentives. Investors should watch for clarity on federal incentive policy, further updates to tariff impact, and progress in domestic supply chain shifts. Continued growth in storage attachment rates, expansion of new products like Flex, and success in multi-channel execution will be important areas to monitor as the year continues.

Revenue and net income presented using U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) unless otherwise noted.

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AI, Superman, and Solar's Kryptonite

In this podcast, Motley Fool host Anand Chokkavelu and contributors Jason Hall and Matt Frankel discuss:

  • AI stocks in the data center space (including CoreWeave).
  • Winners and losers in energy and solar from Trump's "big, beautiful bill."
  • Ranking the intellectual property of Warner Bros. Discovery, Comcast, Disney, and Netflix.
  • Prime Day and other made-up holidays.
  • Stocks to watch.

And Dave Schaeffer, founder and CEO of Cogent Communications, talks with Motley Fool analysts Asit Sharma and Sanmeet Deo about how Cogent's deals with customers like Netflix and Meta Platforms work and what keeps him awake at night.

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A full transcript is below.

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This podcast was recorded on July 11, 2025.

Anand Chokkavelu: Yes, we're talking all kinds of stocks. This week's Motley Fool Money Radio Show starts now. It's the Motley Fool Money Radio Show. I'm Anand Chokkavelu. Joining me are two of my favorite fools, Jason Hall and Matt Frankel. Today, we'll talk about stock market winners and losers from the Big Beautiful Bill. We'll pit Superman versus the Hulk, and we'll of course debate stocks on our radar. But first, we'll discuss whether there's an AI opportunity in investing in data centers. Upstart data center company, CoreWeave, again made news this week this time for announcing the purchase of Core Scientific for $9 billion. This allows it to add infrastructure to consolidate vertically as it seeks to gain market share among AI and high performance computing customers. CoreWeave is just the tip of the data center iceberg. Matt, what categories of data center opportunities are out there?

Matt Frankel: First, you have hyper scalers. These are companies like AWS, Microsoft, Desha. They are companies that operate the large scale data centers. They offer computing and storage infrastructures to customers. As Anand put it, there's CoreWeave, which is one of the least understood recent IPOs that I know. [laughs] They rent out GPU data center infrastructures to customers. It's not always practical for companies to invest in all of NVIDIA's latest chips on their own, for example. That's really what they do. There's the REITs still, Digital Realty and Equinix are the two big ones. They own the data centers. CoreWeave is actually a big Digital Realty tenant. Then there's power generation. I know Jason's going to talk about this a little bit later in the show, but data centers consume a lot of power, and it's growing at an exponential pace. These chips that NVIDIA produces, they are power drains. Nuclear, especially, could be a big part of the solution, but solar and other renewables are also in there.

Jason Hall: We're definitely in the land grab phase of the infrastructure buildout for accelerated computing. I think accelerated computing is maybe a better description than just AI. We talk about the Cloud REIT large. As we see more of the companies involved start to monetize things like AI agents at scale. I think that's where these investments are going to pay off.

Anand Chokkavelu: Big question. Do any of these categories interest you all for investing?

Matt Frankel: Well, I'm well known as being the real estate guy at the Motley Fool, so it shouldn't be a big surprise, but Digital Realty is my second largest and my second longest running REIT investment in my portfolio. I'm an Amazon shareholder, and I know that's not their only business, but AWS is the primary reason I own it. I don't own CoreWeave yet, and I think the stock is a little bit pricey, to say the least. But the more I read about it, the more I'm intrigued by the company. As I mentioned, they're a big tenant of Digital Realty, so I have some exposure already.

Jason Hall: The things about CoreWeave that concern me is the stock is definitely expensive. But if the opportunity is even close to as large as we think, it could still work out, but they're going to need a lot of money to pay for what they're trying to do and depending on how much of that is from raising debt versus secondary offerings of shares, there's still a lot of questions there. But, Anand, you've given me a chance to talk about Brookfield here. [laughs] How do I not take that opportunity? But I do think that there's a couple of Brookfield entities that are positioned really well here. I want to talk about the providing the energy part of it. Brookfield Renewable is really in the driver seat here as a global provider of renewable energy on multi decade contracts. It is not just accelerated computing, it's the energy transition REIT large. We've already seen it strike big deals with Microsoft and others to provide renewable power on those multi decade contracts. The dividend is really attractive, too. BEP, that's the partnership, yields over 5%. The corporate shares BEPC, it yields about 4.5%. Since mid 2020, that's when Brookfield Renewable rolled the corporation part out and restructured its dividend. The payouts been increased almost 30%. There's a lot to like here. Beyond the yield, I think it's primed to be a total return dynamo over the next decade. If you don't want to own a company that's in the energy part, you want to own the infrastructure, just take a look at sister company Brookfield Infrastructure. The tickers there are BIP and BIPC.

Anand Chokkavelu: Of course, these aren't the only AI stocks out there. Hi, NVIDIA. Do any other areas of AI interest you guys?

Matt Frankel: I love that. You can't talk about AI and data centers without talking about the chipmakers. NVIDIA just hit $4 trillion today as the day we're recording this. NVIDIA is an amazing business, and it has more room to grow than people think just in the data center accelerator space, which is why they're getting so much attention for good reason. The market size is expected to roughly double over the next five years. That's not even to mention the opportunities they have in chips for autonomous vehicles, chips for gaming and more but I prefer AMD, which is often referred to as NVIDIA junior, but I don't think it should be. It's an incredibly well run company that's been a mistake to bet against in the past. As Intel found out the hard way, just having a dominant market share in an area of chip making is not always enough.

Jason Hall: An area of the market that I think could do really well some of the legacy enterprise software giants. I think there may be underappreciated winners from AI. I'll use Salesforce, ticker CRM as an example. It's really starting to get traction with things like it's data cloud and with AI agents. It's starting to sell. We're seeing really rapid uptake of those things and monetization. It has a benefit, an advantage over a lot of these AI start-ups that are just pure AI businesses. It's already a trusted integrated partner with hundreds of thousands of enterprises. It knows their business, it knows their challenges, regulations, opportunities and that credibility, I think, is an edge that we don't give enough credit to. We shouldn't underestimate switching costs, I guess, is what I'm really getting at. You look at Salesforce rates for about 21 times free cash flow and less than seven times sales. That's a really good opportunity. I think it equates to double digit returns if it can just grow revenue around 8-12% a year over the long term, which I think it can.

Anand Chokkavelu: We started to talk a bit about energy and the need for it with all this AI. Let's talk about the energy industry implications of the Big Beautiful Bill, which was signed into law last week. Jason, can you give us the summary of the energy portions?

Jason Hall: Summarizing anything's hard for me, but I'll try. I think the short version is the incentives for renewables, they're getting gutted, really. There's a 30% investment tax credit or ITC for short. The residential solar and battery systems portion of that had been in place to run through 2032 before gradually declining for a few years after that. That now expires. The systems have to be fully installed and commissioned by the end of this year. The commercial ITC for solar and wind projects was on a similar track, but now it expires at the end of 2027, but those projects must begin construction by July 4th of 2026 to qualify for that 30% tax credit. It also terminates the tax credit for new and used EVs, $7,500 for a new EV and up to 4,000 for a used EV. The purchase has to happen before September 30th of this year, so a couple of months. Lastly, it ends the US regulatory credits around vehicle emissions that automakers buy largely from Tesla. This is a significant and profitable revenue stream for EV makers that essentially is going away.

Matt Frankel: Jason, when you say renewables are being gutted, you're essentially referring to solar and wind, if I'm not mistaken. It's not gutting anything for nuclear power, correct?

Jason Hall: That's correct. These things you get are the pure renewables as we think of them.

Anand Chokkavelu: Let's put a fine point on this with specifics. Who are the relative winners and losers, Jason?

Jason Hall: This could be an hour long show, but I'll try to summarize it here. Thinking about the companies that are most directly affected, I think Canadian Solar, which is a large manufacturer of solar panels and energy storage, and they really largely target the utility market, but also residential is definitely a loser here. In the near term Sunrun, its business model is tied to these tax credits as an installer and to some degree, First Solar is also going to be affected. I don't think there's really any winners out of this when it comes to solar. But I think Enphase is probably still in a better position in the market may believe. Maybe First Solar as well. It's been through these battles before, and it has been a winner over the long term. If you look at wind, GE Vernova has been on a huge run. I love that business, but I don't love the stock right now. Tesla, I think maybe one of the bigger losers that investors haven't really considered. Last fiscal year, it earned 2.76 billion in revenue from regulatory credits. That's largely pure profit. Then there's also the loss of those EV tax credits for buyers. That might be offset from some incentives for US made autos that are part of the bill now that were part of the law, but I think this puts Tesla in a tougher spot. The tailwinds are not favorable for fossil fuels before this. This doesn't really change any of that. There's opportunities there, but not because of the law.

Matt Frankel: The reason I asked about nuclear a minute ago is because that's really what I see as the big winner here. I like some of the nuclear focused utility providers. Constellation Energy is one that comes to mind. One of their stated goals is to have the largest carbon free nuclear power fleet in the US by 2040. Jacob Solutions, they provide consulting and design services to the industry. Ticker symbol is J, so it's really easy to remember. They recently had some really big nuclear contract wins. I'm going to push back on Jason's Tesla as a big loser. One, they're American made cars. They qualify for that new auto loan interest deduction, so that could help offset what they're losing from the EV tax credits. They have a big energy storage business, and AI has not only giant power demands, but very variable power demands, and it's going to create a lot of need for large scale energy storage, and Tesla does that. I think they're worth watching.

Jason Hall: That's the one part of Tesla's business that's done extraordinarily well. Over the past few years, as the EV business has weakened, is that the battery business.

Anand Chokkavelu: Now quickly the big question, is solar still investable, Jason?

Jason Hall: I think so. We have a very US centric view, obviously, and the US is a massive important market for solar. But you look around the world and the regulatory environment is still largely favorable. I think if you're willing to write out plenty of volatility, that global opportunity is still really good. Businesses like Enphase, businesses like First Solar that have been through these battles before, and even a Canadian Solar, where it has a ton of projects that it's been funding to build on its books that the math just got changed for them in some big ways. The valuation is so cheap that I think that there's some opportunity there.

Matt Frankel: Taking a step back, the reason you have incentives for solar energy, for EVs, for all this, is because without them, they're not price competitive with the existing technologies. The gap has narrowed significantly, especially in solar over the past say 10 years as to the efficiency of the products themselves and just how much they cost. Eventually, solar is going to be able to stand on its own without incentives. But like Jason said, you have to be able to write out some volatility because that could be five years, that could be 10 years, that could be 20 years so eventually, it won't matter.

Anand Chokkavelu: After the break, we'll move from solar to something else that gets its power from the yellow sun. Stay right here. This is Motley Fool Money.

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Anand Chokkavelu, here with Jason Hall and Matt Frankel. One of our Brothers Discovery's much anticipated latest reboot of Superman hits theaters on Friday. Hoping the Justice League can one day catch Disney's Marvel cinematic universe and hot on the heels of last week's Jurassic World Rebirth from Comcast. In honor of Summer movies, we're going to rank those three companies based on the value of their intellectual property. We'll throw in Netflix for good measure. Its headline this week was stating that half of its global audience now watches anime. Chokkavelu household certainly does with one piece. My kids have gotten me into it. For those unfamiliar, they have more episodes than the Simpsons. Matt, once again, your four choices are Warner Brothers Discovery. That includes the DC Universe, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Harry Potter, the Matrix, Looney Tunes, all our favorite HBO shows. You got Comcast with Shrek, Minions, Kung Fu Panda. You got Disney with Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and Mickey Mouse. Finally, you got Netflix with things like Stranger Things, Bridgerton, Squid Game, newer Adam Sandler movies, and tons of niche content. Mentioned anime, you could argue whether that's niche content or not at this point. Whose intellectual property do you most value, Matt?

Matt Frankel: See, I said Disney. All four of these have excellent intellectual property, and I'll give you a more elaborate description there. In my household, you mentioned your household, how you have all these streaming things. We have a streaming service from all four of these. We have the Peacock service, which is a comcast product. We have HBO Max, which is a Warner Brothers discovery product. We have Disney Plus, and we have Netflix. Disney Plus also has Hulu attached to it. I ask myself, which is the least dispensable? I could cancel all the other ones before I'd be allowed to cancel Disney Plus for the other members of my household. Their film franchises are beyond compare. They have a much longer history of building intellectual property than all of these, especially in terms of valuables. Mickey Mouse is so old, it's not even intellectual property anymore. It's over 100-years-old, so I think it's actually in the public domain now. I have to say Disney, although it's a lot closer than I would have thought a few years ago.

Jason Hall: Yeah, if you had have asked me a few years ago, I absolutely would have said Disney, but I'm going to give the advantage to Netflix here. Let me contextualize that. I think the total value of Disney's IP is probably higher, but Netflix's ability to monetize it more effectively all over the world, I think, is even better than Disney's. I don't think any of these businesses in their studios have done a better job of making content that's relevant in more markets around the world than Netflix does. Let's be honest, I was able to watch Happy Gilmore with my eight year old son this weekend and I watched that on Netflix, that's bridging generations right there.

Anand Chokkavelu: Three things. One, Chokkavelu household is very excited for Happy Gilmore, too. Even my wife is in on it. Two, the Steamboat Willie era, Mickey Mouse is free to the world. The other ones aren't. I'm glad I'm not the only one with way too many streaming services, Matt. Let's talk about Last Place. Who are you cutting first, Matt?

Matt Frankel: Well, all those streaming services are still less than I was paying for direct TV a few years ago, so I think I'm doing all right. For me, the last place, it was between Comcast and Warner Brothers Discovery, both of which have amazing intellectual property, just to show you what a tight race this is. Comcast has universal. I was just in Orlando, and the universal theme parks are massive down there. But I have to put Comcast in last place. Just because Warner Brothers, I think the HBO Max acquisition was such a big advantage for them. They have some of the most valuable television assets of all time. More people watch the sopranos now than they did when it was originally on TV. It's a very valuable valuable asset, Game of Thrones. All these HBO shows that are among the highest rated shows of all time are part of their library. In addition to their film studio and all the other assets that we can't name because it's not that long of a show. I'd have to give Comcast last place, although, like I said, there's a good argument to be made for most of these to be in the top one or two.

Jason Hall: Yeah, I think that's fair. I agree with Matt that Comcast is the Number 4 here. But I don't think that's a flaw. It's just the nature of its business. About two thirds of its business comes from its cable subscriptions and high speed Internet. It's built differently than these other companies. I think it's fine that it's a little bit smaller.

Anand Chokkavelu: I will say, just to defend Comcast a little. I was thinking about my parents live in Florida, and it's high time we bring my two boys to Disney World or something like that. Honestly, the Universal theme park, the new one with Nintendo, Mario and the Harry Potter realm, it's close. We might we might prefer that one, but just to give a little love to Comcast and Universal. Jason Hall and Matt Frankel, we'll see you a little bit later in the show, but up next, we'll talk to the founder of one of the top five networks in the world, so stick around. This is Motley Fool Money. [MUSIC].

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Anand Chokkavelu. Dave Schaeffer is the founder and CEO of Internet Service Provider Cogent Communications. Believe it or not, Cogent's the seventh successful company Dave Schaeffer has founded. Shaffer joined Fool analysts Asit Sharma and Sanmeet Deo to discuss how it deals with customers like Netflix and Meta platforms work and what keeps him up at night.

Asit Sharma: Well, hello, fools. I am Asit Sharma and I'm joined by fellow analyst Sanmeet Deo today, and our guest is Dave Schaeffer. Dave is CEO of Cogent Communications. He's also the founder of this company founded in 1999. Dave has grown Cogent Communications into a global tier one Internet service provider. It's ranked as one of the top five networks in the world. Dave is also a serial entrepreneur. He's founded six successful businesses prior to Cogent, and foolishly, he's also one of the longest serving founder CEOs in the public markets. We're delighted to have him with us today. Dave Schaeffer, welcome.

Dave Schaeffer: Hey, well, thanks for that great introduction.

Asit Sharma: To get started, let's jump in. Dave, for our members who might be unfamiliar with the ISP or Internet service provider industry, can you just explain what Cogent does and how it makes money?

Dave Schaeffer: Yeah, sure. Cogent provides Internet access to customers and to other service providers. I think virtually everyone uses the Internet, but rarely understands how it operates. Cogent has a network of approximately 99,000 route miles of intercity fiber that circumnavigates the globe and serves six continents. We then have an additional 34,000 route miles of fiber in 292 markets in 57 countries around the world. That network is solely built for the purpose of delivering Internet connectivity. When a customer buys Internet access, what they are really buying are interfaced routed bit miles connected to other networks. If you tried to sell a customer that they would have no idea what you're talking about. The average bit on the public Internet travels about 2,800 miles. It goes through eight and a half unique routers and 2.4 networks between origin and destination. Coaching carries approximately 25% of the world's Internet traffic on its network and has more other networks connected directly to it than any other network.

Asit Sharma: Yours is a primary network. Oftentimes, we hear of middlemen carriers in between ourselves sending that bit. Let's say I'm chatting with Sanmeet over Slack, sending him some bits as we have been exchanging through the day and him receiving that. But you are, I think we can think of Cogent as being the primary fiber that is the backbone of this information communication network, is that correct?

Dave Schaeffer: That is correct. We operate two very different customer segments, roughly 95% of our traffic, but only 37% of our revenue comes from selling to other service providers. We provide Internet connectivity to 8,200 access networks around the world and about 7,000 content generating businesses. Whether it be Bell Canada, British Telecom, China Telecom, Comcast or Cox. They could be customers of Cogent on the access side, where they aggregate literally billions of end users. Then on the other side, we sell connectivity to large content generating companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta, where they use us as their Internet provider. The second portion of Cogent's business is selling directly to end users. That represents about 63% of our revenues, but only approximately 5% of our total traffic. Cogent is an ISP, primarily in North America, where we connect to a billion square feet of office space, where we sell directly to end users. Then globally, we sell to multinational companies, oftentimes using last mile connections from third parties.

Asit Sharma: I always like to understand how exactly the companies I'm looking at make money. For example, for Netflix or Meta, or you pick a content provider, whoever it might be, when they work with you, explain that to me how they buy? Do they buy bandwidth in a package? Do they have a contract? How does that work? When they look to you to say, hey, we want to buy some bandwidth?

Dave Schaeffer: Yeah, so typically, we will provide them connections in multiple markets around the world. They will then have a minimum commitment level, and then above that, they pay on a metered basis. The way in which we bill is megabits per second at peak load over the course of the month. We bill at the 95th percentile, which means if you have a very spiky event that lasts less than 18 hours in a month, you don't pay for that incremental bandwidth but everything below that peak utilization, you pay a bill on a per megabit basis.

Dave Schaeffer: That is the way in which any service provider, whether it be an access network like Telkom South Africa, or a cable company like Rogers in Canada would buy from us. But for our corporate customers, the billing model is very different. For corporate customers, they typically buy in end user locations, not in data centers, and they are paying us a flat monthly fee for a fixed connection that is unmetered. I think of it as an all you can eat model.

Sanmeet Deo: There is a monthly recurring revenue that you get. It's just that with your network or your content customers, it could vary based on their usage. They could dial it up, dial it down, based on, like, this week, actually, they're dropping Squid Game, so they can anticipate they're going to need a lot of bandwidth versus maybe next month, their content late is a little lower, so they won't use up as much versus the corporate customers are paying more of a recurring, not based on volume. Is that accurate?

Dave Schaeffer: Is correct, Sanmeet. Virtually all of our revenue is predictable, even for those variable usage customers, there is oftentimes a very consistent pattern to their usage, and their bills do not vary by more than a couple percent month over month.

Sanmeet Deo: Dave, let's go on to looking at a review of recent performance. 2024 was a great year for Cogent. It crossed $1 billion in annual revenue. Can you just walk us through the highlights of your key business segments, wholesale, enterprise, net-centric? What drove the performance? Also did anything about the year surprise you as you went through it?

Dave Schaeffer: Two things. First of all our Internet based business represents 88% of our revenues across all three segments. We do derive about 12% of revenues from selling some adjacent services. Those being co location in our data center footprint. Optical transport or wavelength services and the leasing out of IPV4 addresses. We did generate about $1 billion in revenue in 2024 and 2024 was a year of significant transition for Cogent. Cogent had organically grown between 2005 and 2020 as a public company with no M&A at a compounded growth rate of 10.2% per year average over that period. We also were able to experience significant margin expansion during that period, where our EBITDA margins expanded at roughly 220 basis points per year over that same 15 year measurement period. When COVID hit, our corporate segment slowed materially because people were not going to offices, and as a result, Cogent's total growth rate had decreased to about 5% and our rate of margin expansion slowed to about 100 basis points. In May of '23, we acquired the former Sprint Long Distance Network, a Sprint Global Markets Group business from T-Mobile. That business was actually in decline and burning cash. In 2024, we significantly reduced that cash burn, and we were able to begin to repurpose some of the flow Sprint assets. In order to facilitate this transaction, T-Mobile paid us in cash over a 54 month period beginning in May of '23, $700 million. In 2024, a significant milestone for Cogent was our ability to take out much of that burn from that business and to actually accelerate the decline in that acquired business, as many of the products that were being sold or gross margin negative services.

Anand Chokkavelu: As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. Don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. See our full advertising disclosure. Please check out our show notes. Up next, we've got stocks on our radar. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.

I'm Anand Chokkavelu, joined again by Jason Hall and Matt Frankel. This week's been Prime Day week invented out of thin air in 2015 to boost sales. It's almost literally become Christmas in July for Amazon, and to a lesser extent, all the imitating retailers. Got me wondering. Is this the greatest feat of something from nothing marketing we've seen? If not, what's competing with it, Jason?

Jason Hall: I think it's not even something from nothing. I think they stole this idea. Christmas in July has been around literally since the 1900. I think they're getting maybe a little bit too much credit for just being a really big retailer, smart enough to say, hey, we're doing a sale when there was nothing else going on, and people were like, oh, it's a big sale. Well, people kept coming, so it just gets bigger every single year.

Matt Frankel: Before e-commerce, Jason's right, remember the Sunday paper that had all the flyers from all the stores. They'd have their semi annual sales. The President's Day weekend sales were the ones I remember that were the biggest deals ever that really were just meant to invigorate sales in a historically slow time of year. But really, this concept has been applied over and over. Think of how many tourist destinations create random festivals in the worst months to go, like, weather wise. I used to live in Key West, Florida, and the biggest party of the year is called Fantasy Fest. It was created to invigorate tourism during hurricane season. It's a concept that's worked over and over, and this is a big one.

Anand Chokkavelu: Dan.

Dan Boyd: I just wanted to jump in here and mention Father's Day and Mother's Day. Surprised that you guys didn't mention those. We're all fathers here on the podcast, so I know that we enjoy Father's Day, but, like, come on. They're nothing. They were just created to sell stuff.

Anand Chokkavelu: You're not going to mention Valentine's Day, Mr. Grinch.

Dan Boyd: Valentine's Day has somewhat historical significance with all the St. Valentine's stuff. I didn't want to go too far into it in my grumpiness Anand, but I guess we can throw that one on the fire.

Anand Chokkavelu: Speaking of Singles Day in China. The Alibaba took that cemented in the '90s. I think less commercy, but then it became more commercy. Two other things, Sears' catalog. Let's not forget. A lot of times Sears really is the Amazon before Amazon we forget about it because we see it at its late phases. It wasn't the first catalog, Tiffany, Montgomery Ward, they beat it to the punch. But when it was going, it was called the Consumer Bible. Then on a smaller scale, I'll give one more. Just shout out to Spotify rapped. They do a wonderful job inventing a thing to get us more engaged. Let's get to the stocks on our radar. Our man behind the glass, who we just recently, Dan Boyd, is going to hit you with a question. We're more likely, historically, an amusing comment. Jason, you're up first. What are you looking at this week?

Jason Hall: How about Church and Dwight? Ticker C-H-D. I don't know if we give some of these legacy consumer brands companies enough talk. What's Church and Dwight? You've probably heard of Arm & Hammer baking soda. But they also own a lot of other retail brands. You might be familiar with Orajel, if you've ever had a sore tooth or you have a baby that kind of thing comes up. They own Trojan, which is another brand that people might be familiar with. But here's my personal. Right now, I have a cold. I'm living and functioning off of Zicam. That's a Church and Dwight product that's really getting me through. Over the long term, it's been a great investment. Over the past 10 years, the stocks returned about 10.5% in total returns. That's underperformed the market, but it's better than the market's long term average. I think there might be something there.

Anand Chokkavelu: Dan, a question about Church and Dwight?

Dan Boyd: Not really a question, Anand, but more of a comment. Jason, you forgot to mention OxiClean in the Church and Dwight product catalog here as a parent of a three-year-old and a nine month old laundry is a very important thing on our house, and I don't think we could survive without that OxiClean.

Jason Hall: I will raise your three-year-old and nine month old with an eight and a half year old who plays soccer. My house runs on that stuff. I'm with you there.

Anand Chokkavelu: Matt, what's on your radar?

Matt Frankel: Well, now what's on my radar is the OxiClean that I have in the closet right there. But as far as the stock, I'd have to say SoFi. Ticker symbol S-O-F-I. Fantastic momentum. They've done a great job of creating capital white revenue streams in recent years. The growth is actually accelerating. They recently announced they're bringing crypto back to their platform now that the banks are allowed to do so. That's going to be a big driver. Not only crypto, they're going a step further. They're going to start bringing blockchain facilitated money transfers across border for free. They have lots of big plans. They recently started doing private equity investing for everybody. Guys like you and me can invest in companies like SpaceX and OpenAI that are pre IPO through SoFi's platform through venture funds. There's a lot going on in this business, and it's still a relatively small bank, and they aim to be a Top 10 bank within the next decade.

Anand Chokkavelu: Dan, question about SoFi.

Dan Boyd: Well, absolute F to name. SoFi, just terrible. I feel like smart people like them could have come up with something better, but private equity investing is very interesting, Matt, though a little scared to me without the reporting regulations that public companies have to do.

Matt Frankel: I do think it was a natural thing, though, now that all these companies are waiting longer than ever to go public. SpaceX is a massive business. OpenAI has a, $100 billion plus valuation. There's a lot to like there and a lot of potential.

Anand Chokkavelu: Dan, which company you're putting on your watch list, OxiClean or private equity stuff.

Dan Boyd: I'm going to go with Church and Dwight for some of that beautiful OxiClean.

Anand Chokkavelu: That's all for this week. See you next time.

John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Anand Chokkavelu, CFA has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, First Solar, Microsoft, Netflix, Salesforce, SoFi Technologies, Walt Disney, and Warner Bros. Discovery. Asit Sharma has positions in Amazon, Digital Realty Trust, Microsoft, Nvidia, Salesforce, Upstart, and Walt Disney. Dan Boyd has positions in Amazon and Walt Disney. Jason Hall has positions in Brookfield Asset Management, Brookfield Infrastructure, Brookfield Renewable, Enphase Energy, First Solar, Nvidia, SoFi Technologies, Upstart, and Walt Disney and has the following options: short January 2026 $27 calls on SoFi Technologies, short January 2027 $32.50 puts on Upstart, and short January 2027 $40 puts on Enphase Energy. Matt Frankel has positions in Amazon, Brookfield Asset Management, Digital Realty Trust, SoFi Technologies, Upstart, and Walt Disney and has the following options: short December 2025 $95 calls on Upstart. Sanmeet Deo has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Netflix, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Brookfield Asset Management, Constellation Energy, Digital Realty Trust, Equinix, First Solar, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Netflix, Nvidia, Salesforce, Tesla, Upstart, Walt Disney, and Warner Bros. Discovery. The Motley Fool recommends Alibaba Group, Brookfield Renewable, Comcast, Enphase Energy, Ge Vernova, and T-Mobile US and recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Why Solar Stocks Plunged Today

Shares of solar stocks, including rooftop solar provider Sunrun (NASDAQ: RUN), renewables-focused utility NextEra Energy (NYSE: NEE), and renewable power provider AES Corp. (NYSE: AES), plunged on Thursday, falling 40%, 9.1%, and 5.2%, respectively, as of 12:50 p.m. ET.

Solar stocks took it on the chin -- especially residential rooftop solar providers -- after the "big, beautiful" tax and spending bill passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives this morning.

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Even worse than feared for solar and renewable energy

While it was expected that the bill would phase out some of the Inflation Reduction Act's renewable energy tax credits over time, the House bill was actually even worse than feared for the solar industry. The bill now phases out most clean-energy tax credits for utility projects either begun more than 60 days after passage or placed into service after 2028. The bill also restricts foreign entities' involvement in renewable energy projects, making it even more difficult for developers to deploy projects within the tight time frame.

This morning's bill was more restrictive than the version of the phaseout included in the House Ways and Means Committee version released May 12. Hence the reaction from utility solar and renewable companies like NextEra and AES. For instance, AES has 11.7 gigawatts of contracted energy projects that have been signed but are not yet operational, and only half are currently under construction. So, it's unclear how much of that backlog may be at risk.

But the bill was also much, much more dire for residential rooftop solar companies, throwing the entire industry into chaos. According to an earlier version of the bill, the tax credit for installing rooftop solar would be phased out for those who owned their systems, but would stay in place for homeowners and business owners who leased their systems -- which applied to the vast majority of rooftop solar deployments.

However, the bill that passed this morning also rolled back the tax credit for leased systems, which one Wall Street analyst called "disastrous" for the rooftop solar industry. Another claimed the bill as passed would mark "the end" of the U.S. rooftop solar industry as it is currently constructed.

That's why Sunrun, whose entire business is built around residential solar, is down a stunning 40% in a single day.

In addition to the phased-out tax credit, Sunrun also has exposure to imported components and modules, which will also now be taxed by the administration's recently implemented tariffs and could be affected by foreign partnership restrictions in the bill. Sunrun imports about 50% of its solar panels, and even its domestically purchased batteries and other components have exposure to Chinese supply chains. So, the recent tariffs and other limits on foreign components and partnerships in the bill could make things doubly bad for Sunrun.

Solar installers put solar panels on a roof.

Image source: Getty Images.

But the bill isn't law yet

It should be noted that the One Big, Beautiful Bill has only passed the House, and by a single vote. The bill will now head to the Senate, where many Senators have expressed reservations about the current House provisions. So, investors should expect more Washington dealmaking and negotiation in the weeks ahead.

However, the passage of this bill with these worse-than-expected provisions is still a big net negative for any domestic solar player. Interested or current investors need to hope that some of the credits will be reintroduced in the Senate version and then passed after the two bills are reconciled.

As of now, I would stay away from solar-exposed stocks, especially rooftop solar names, until the dust settles.

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Billy Duberstein and/or his clients have no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends NextEra Energy. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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