Polysilicon
The inventories of all large polysilicon manufacturers were short in January. Besides, there were many orders extending till February with the demand on the market. Thus, these manufacturers will not suffer price reduction pressure before Chinese New Year. Prices in February can therefore be maintained at RMB 145~150/kg. Yet, the weak market condition may cause tension for medium and small manufacturers. In February, some medium and small manufacturers will be likely to lower prices. It is expected that prices of RMB 135~140/kg may occur on the market in February.
Besides, the polysilicon price trends for mono-si wafer and multi-si wafer were different. Because mono-si manufacturers have inventory strategies, the material price for mono-si wafer can remain at a high level and the material price for multi-si wafer may go down.
Si-wafer
Under the impact of PV cell price reduction last week, si-wafer price this week continued to decrease. Meanwhile, because the PV cell quoted price this week still declined, si-wafer price will be likely to go down next week.
This week, price from large multi-si wafer manufacturers reached around RMB 4/pc. In addition, owing to the entire weak market trend, price before Chinese New Year may decrease to RMB 3.8-4/pc. If the leading manufacturer keeps producing, price will decline under weak demand, affecting the entire multi-si wafer supply.
Overall, because of the bad market condition, mono-si wafer and multi-si wafer still suffered high sales pressure. However, because the leading manufacturer of mono-si wafer may exchange si-wafer for cell OEM and module manufacturing, the inventory pressure is expected to shift to the module sector and reducing mono-si wafer’s sales pressure. Thus, currently price of mono-si wafer is more stable than multi-si wafer.
PV cell
This week, PV cell still suffered inventory and sales pressure. Followed by last week’s RMB 1.4/W, price this week decreased to RMB 1.35~1.38/W. The market condition was poor and sales pressure continued. However, this week, some makers started to reduce or halt capacity; thus, price reduction has been improved. It is expected that the following decrease will depend on si-wafer sector.
Taiwan has been influenced by the entire bad market condition. PV cell price this week has been less than US$0.2/W.
Module
Some mono-si wafer manufacturers transferred the inventory pressure to module, making module’s competitive pressure grow. At the same time, because the market demand weakened, the competition of module supplying sector became quite severe, resulting in price reduction.
On the other hand, Taiwan and Korea have announced that they will appeal the US Section 201 trade case to WTO. After releasing the Section 201 trade case for a while, some manufacturers have started the production project in the US. Yet, recently they have been halted due to price–performance ratio problem. Nevertheless, when the module capacity in the US expands, it will bring benefit to Taiwan’s cell manufacturers.