Newport Corporation has announced that last year’s sales figures demonstrated a massive expansion into the photovoltaic equipment market, with orders to PV manufacturers increasing by 150%, to $33.6 million.

According to ,

Solar equipment sales totalled US$21.0 million in 2008, compared with US$9.3 million in 2007. Fourth quarter sales to PV manufacturers reached US$5.9 million, while orders received totalled US$3.2 million.

Robert Phillippy, President and CEO of Newport noted in the call that access to capital for some customers was proving harder to obtain and expected a pause in production expansions until the capital markets improved. However, he said that the underlying demand for solar energy remained strong, despite financial market condition