PV inverter market: second-quarter earnings still down

As prices fell sharply, PV inverter supplier's receipts in the second quarter of 2011 compared with the same period last year dropped by 1.3%. However, in the second quarter is not all bad news, in fact, the inverter shipments rose by more than 40 percent in the first quarter of the market situation indicates that excess inventory will not undermine the development of industry, the second half of 2011 downstream demand will be more robust.

IMS Research, said inverter market in strong recovery in the second quarter of 2011, the first half of the power inverter with charger shipments reached nearly 10 GW, however, prices fell more than 20 percent, resulting in industry revenues declined. Earlier this year, IMS Research has forecast full-year inverter shipments will again exceeds 20 GW, but the rapid decline in prices will lead to decline in revenue, lower than the 2010 record of history.

IMS Research's PV inverter supply quarterly reports collected over 90% of industry revenue and shipments of enterprise data, the report shows that in the second quarter, the price is the most critical factor, and is expected in the second half prices will fall further. IMS Research PV Ash Sharma, senior research director, said: "The first quarter and second quarter, the average price of inverters quickly fell to 0.20 euros / W or less, although less than the speed of falling prices of PV modules, but a year ago, a decrease of 20%, of which there are reasons for changes in the product mix. "

Price decline caused by several factors, but in the next few quarters, average prices may also rebounded. Ash Sharma said: "with different PV modules, inverters prices fell for many reasons, of course, the customer will require suppliers to cut prices, but there are more important factors, such as the market shifted to lower-priced areas, in addition, the product structure has also changed, from the higher-priced string inverters into lower-cost three-phase inverter products, also caused a decline in revenue. "

PV inverter needs changing geography of the industry's price has a double impact. First, some low-cost markets such as India and China, accounting for a share of the global market, causing prices to fall. Second, many large suppliers continue to shift attention from the stagnant German market shifted to some smaller emerging markets. Ash Sharma said: "The vendors are trying to seize the market share in emerging markets, where there is hope in the long-term development, but this will lead to a very low offer, is a short-sighted behavior." Interviews to major integrators display, in order to repel opponents, some of the leading supplier of power inverters in emerging European markets in small price by more than 45%.

Due to weak demand, the inverter charger suppliers have expanded base for customers, which would inevitably lead to falling prices, and continue to put pressure on suppliers to reduce costs and price competition. Ash Sharma said: "This year, prices fell inverter part of the reason is the transfer of location and product market structure changes, but in fact, the price of the second quarter, all regions are on the decline, while in mature markets such as Germany and Italy, as a drop in demand but the supply increases, prices fall very quickly. "

Although the number of inverter suppliers more and more, but the second quarter, the market leader SMA Solar regain some market share, an increase of 8 per cent share of the market's overall control over 30% again. Ash Sharma said: "Although the competitiveness of SMA has been reflected in the technology, brand and value-added products, but the second quarter, indicating that they can also work with opponents to competing on price, but the price in the end be able to SMA how low remains to be seen. "