| Category | |
|---|---|
| Author | InfoLink |
| Updated | May 24, 2018 |
Poly
Polysilicon manufacturers are still conservative toward the market condition this week. The overall trading volume remains weak, just like February. Orders can be seen till late-May/June for top/second-tier Chinese polysilicon manufacturers, and therefore prices won’t be adjusted under weak product pull-out for downstream sectors. That’s why top-tier makers haven’t started to make any price adjustment and second-tier manufacturers only did ratio adjustment to prices and the production of polysilicon for mono and multi-Si wafer use. Third-tier manufacturers witnessed high level of inventory because they couldn’t supply polysilicon for mono-Si wafer use. As a result, the low price in the market is mainly proposed by third-tier manufacturers.
As wafer makers lower capacities, wafer makers’ polysilicon stock is higher than polysilicon makers’. Consequently, although buyers and sellers will begin to negotiate at next week’s SNEC, orders won’t actually be placed until later. The trading volume should be larger in early-June, while prices will be lowered more significantly.
Wafer
Although multi-Si wafer makers continued to lower utilization rates and actual production, multi-Si wafer prices kept dropping. The highest price of multi-Si wafers has reached RMB 3.2/piece, mostly between RMB 3.1-3.15/piece. Some orders are even priced under RMB 3/piece.
The weak market demand still put multi-Si wafer at a disadvantageous position, leading to higher multi-Si wafer stock. Yet, since the price gap between mono and multi-Si wafers has widened, multi-Si cell and module prices have been adjusted as well. The cost effectiveness for multi-Si products seem to have more advantages, which allows mono-Si wafer prices for June to be lowered further to be like multi-Si wafers.
Cell
It’s only less than a month and a half till June 30th. Cell manufacturers obviously don’t expect strong multi-Si cell demand before June 30th. Second/third-tier multi-Si and mid-to-low efficiency cell makers have started to sell cells at a cheaper price to avoid larger decline in losses. Orders with prices below RMB 1.3/W can be seen.
Although top-tier Chinese cell makers lowered prices from RMB 1.38-1.4/W to RMB 1.35/W, the decline of such prices is still much slower than multi-Si and second/third-tier manufacturers. More will be traded at next week’s SNEC. Prices are likely to drop further.
The mono-Si PERC and conventional mono-Si cell markets continued to witness strong demand, but since multi-Si product prices keep dropping, the rise of mono-Si product price is limited considering the cost effectiveness. Prices didn’t change much this week.
Module
Due to weak multi-Si product demand, the price gap between 270W and 275W multi-Si modules is widened substantially. Prices will stay stable for 275W modules for now, but multi-Si module prices will decline further due to the lower multi-Si wafer prices.