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| Author | InfoLink |
| Updated | June 21, 2018 |
Demand for China’s installation boom will remain high in July, leading to strong domestic demand. Meanwhile, Europe is entering the peak-selling season and has become one of the major demand countries for modules. In addition, the “Section 201” in the US has resulted in rush installation ahead of time, and thus all three major markets – China, the US, and Europe are conducting stock offload in July, supporting the prices.
Poly
Global demand visibility is high in July. Polysilicon makers are no longer conservative and will continually complete the order transaction for early-July, with the prices staying flat like that in June. The average trading price of polysilicon has reached RMB 120-122/kg for top-tier manufacturers and RMB 118-119/kg for small-scale manufacturers. Polysilicon prices also remained steady this week in the overseas market.
Wafer
Longi actively lowered mono-Si wafer prices to RMB 5.85/piece for 180um and RMB 6/piece for 190um in China and US$ 0.78/piece for 180um and US$ 0.8/piece for 190um in Taiwan. Under such significant adjustment in prices, the mono-Si wafer prices have begun to decline in some of the spot markets. But overall, the mono-Si wafer market will still witness tight supply in July and it won’t be alleviated until after August.The multi-Si wafer market is still waiting for leading manufacturers’ price quotes. Therefore, prices didn’t fluctuate much this week.
Cell
Following the higher order visibility for cells in July, the price trend has slowly become clear. Demand for multi-Si cells will remain strong in early-July, with the mainstream prices reaching RMB 1.8/W. However, since domestic demand will drop and India will enter the rainy season in late-July, prices may start to decline for second-tier manufacturers first. Meanwhile, owing to the unclear trend for multi-Si wafers in Taiwan, prices didn’t fluctuate much this week, reaching US$ 0.23/W. But supported by the strong European demand, multi-Si cell prices will increase in Taiwan and the overseas in early-July.
The spotlight of this week was the increasing demand in the European and US markets, leading to higher cell prices in third-party countries. Conventional multi-Si cell with efficiency of 18.4% is now priced at US$ 0.24/W and may increase further later on.
For mono-Si cells, the conventional mono-Si cell market has witnessed chaotic pricing in China. Although conventional mono-Si cell still saw tight supply but it has begun to be alleviated. Mono-Si cell prices may decline like wafers in July. On the other hand, because of the increasing orders for PERC cells in Europe, more people have inquired about PERC cells, leading to stable prices.
Module
Chinese module makers will still be running at full capacities before late-July, reaching RMB 2.9-3.1/W for multi-Si and more than RMB 3.2/W for mono-Si. For the overseas modules, aside from the strong demand in Europe and the “Section 201” in the US, the price rise of cells also has to be digested. This week, overseas module prices have increased substantially and may rise later on. Mono-Si PERC module will even be in serious supply shortage in Q3.