JA Solar announces strategic partnership with Jabil

SHANGHAI, CHINA: JA Solar Holdings Co. Ltd, one of the world's largest manufacturers of high-performance solar cells and solar power products, announced that it has entered into a two-year strategic partnership with Jabil Circuit Inc., a leading global electronic product solutions company headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Under the partnership framework, JA Solar expects to supply Jabil with up to 400MW of solar cells over two years, as well as certified module designs to Jabil for the manufacturing of up to 200MW per year of modules with JA Solar cells.

JA Solar intends to provide solar cells and additionally grant Jabil the right to manufacture JA Solar's portfolio of OEM modules at Jabil's solar facilities, including those in Mexico, Poland and China. The companies will further collaborate on marketing and selling JA Solar modules to customers, especially in the US.

The duration of the alliance is for two years. Module production is expected to commence in the third quarter of 2011.

"We believe that both JA Solar and Jabil will benefit from this strategic alliance by working together to meet strong global demand for solar products," stated Dr. Peng Fang, CEO of JA Solar. "This alliance demonstrates the great success of our long-term strategy to partner with leading US-based companies in order to enter the rapidly growing US market. By leveraging Jabil's expertise and experience in solar module manufacturing and strong global presence, we can further optimize our cost structure and expand our footprint into strategically important markets, especially in the US."

"We are very pleased to establish this partnership with JA Solar and look forward to working with them to supply top quality solar modules for the next two years and beyond," said Tim Main, Jabil's president and CEO. "We believe these collaborative efforts, combined with the strong global trend toward renewable energy, should result in a very successful relationship."