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Although the solar power wafer vendor SAS suffers influence of the hardship in solar power market, 60% shareholder GlobalWafers has gained profits from investing in SAS because the price of semiconductor wafer is rising in the booming market; as to the solar power’s market condition of SAS, because SAS has benefited from the decrease in mono-si wafer price and the rise in polysilicon wafer price, and because the module factories in Germany are running at full capacity, industry observers predict that SAS can reach above the breakeven point in the solar power industry of the second quarter. Plus, with the contribution from GlobalWafers, the profit is expected to become much higher.
As to the solar power business of SAS, trend of the solar power market’s condition is beneficial for SAS. Mono-si wafer price decreased in the second quarter. SAS Yilan branch produces mainly mono-si solar cell. The production capacity is 800MW. If mono-si wafer price decreases, the cost of its cell may become lower, and this can make cell business gain profits.
As to polysilicon wafer, the main product of SAS, the production capacity is 1GW. In the first quarter, wafer price decreased; however, the price rose in the second quarter because of the booming market. Overall, polysilicon wafer business is picking up steam; for module business, the production capacity of module factories in Germany is 200MW, and due to the closure of Solarworld this year, factories in Germany received transferred orders, making their current capacity full. In light of these facts, industry observers believe that SAS can gain profits in the solar power industry of the second quarter.
As to the subsidiary company GlobalWafers, the trend of price hike in semiconductor wafer remains unchanged, and the quoted price increases quarter by quarter. With the gradually rising capacities of 8 inch and 12 inch, they will be out of stock because of the high demand in market next year. For GlobalWafers, because it merged SunEdison SEMI in the first half of the year and SunEdison SEMI still needed to follow the old rules, the rise in price in the first half of the year wasn’t much. It is expected that the time GlobalWafers’ quoted price will reach the others’ is in the third quarter. The rise in price of the third quarter is expected to be bigger than that of the second quarter, and will be better than other similar industries.
Also, for the second quarter, the rise of 8 inch wafer was small; however, starting in the third quarter, all supplies of 6 inch, 8 inch and 12 inch wafers will fall short of demand, and the prices’ rise will drive the industry’s price growth in the third quarter. For SunEdison SEMI, they have made profits in March. With the price hike in the second quarter, the profits they gain may improve.
(Photo source: SAS)