Taiwanese solar makers' revenues climbed while prices dropped in March, April prospects pale

TAIWAN: EnergyTrend, the green energy research division of TrendForce, indicates that the solar industry has been receiving increasing market attention due to the United States’ anti-subsidy duty rates policy.

The Taiwanese maker’s March revenue announcements reflected how the US policy measures drove Chinese solar companies to resort to Taiwanese solar makers for their OEM needs in order to avoid being levied taxes, both bolstering Taiwanese solar companies’ revenues in March and fuelling the discussion about the China and United States solar trade dispute.Source: EnergyTrend, Taiwan.

TrendForce indicates that solid March revenues did not reflect positively on the solar products’ prices. Despite the fact that the solar makers were at full capacity in February, it did not boost the solar prices in March. The low prices could be attributed to Germany's solar subsidies cuts. However, except for solar system makers, the prices in the solar supply chain have gradually dropped to the same level back in 4Q11.

According to TrendForce research, Germany’s subsidy cut in April has been causing the rush orders to pour in and boost the prices, but the market uncertainty has compromised the rush order volume, reaching a halt by early March. Strong March revenues were due to the higher prices in early March, and by late March, no factors remained to provide further upswings, which rendered the companies conservative.

In addition, Taiwanese solar cell and module makers have been aggressively slashing prices in order to win Chinese solar companies’ OEM orders, affecting the prices of wafer and polysilicon. The current market demand have dipped considerably compared to that in late February.

Looking toward 12’Apr, TrendForce estimates the prices to continue plunging. 2012 will see Taiwanese solar industry’s prospects stay murky until Italy’s subsidy cut becomes certain and in turn stimulates rush orders. Therefore, Taiwanese solar companies are conservative about the growth momentum in the near future.

Taiwanese solar companies’ revenues all went up in March – Neo Solar Power and Gintech’s revenues climbed by 20 percent, and Solartech Energy Corp.’s revenue increased by 30 percent. Green Energy Technology’s revenue increased slightly by 2.94 percent and Sino-America’s soared 18.6 percent.