PVinsights:Polysilicon extends the price improvement

Polysilicon price extends gains this week as shortage situation in China continues to reverberate. As some Chinese polysilicon makers leverage strategic supply curtailment, polysilicon supply remains tight in China. Meanwhile, the demand in China has strengthened amid the extensive capacity expansion of downstream wafer manufacturers. Hence, as supply shortage situation panics polysilicon buyers, Chinese supplier are able to drive the price quote up successfully. On the other hand, as affected by the price uptrend in China, polysilicon suppliers also follow to increase their price quotes outside China with success.

Polysilicon price extends gains this week as shortage situation in China continues to reverberate. As some Chinese polysilicon makers leverage strategic supply curtailment, polysilicon supply remains tight in China. Meanwhile, the demand in China has strengthened amid the extensive capacity expansion of downstream wafer manufacturers. Hence, as supply shortage situation panics polysilicon buyers, Chinese supplier are able to drive the price quote up successfully. On the other hand, as affected by the price uptrend in China, polysilicon suppliers also follow to increase their price quotes outside China with success. However, the US polysilicon suppliers, with swollen stockpiles and restricted access to Chinese markets, are still dumping polysilicon in the spot market, causing the polysilicon price in overseas market to increase rather limited.


Multi-crystalline wafer price declines sequentially this week as being affected by plummeted multi-crystalline cell price. Nevertheless, the price drop is relatively limited as demand remains solid. Although multi-crystalline cell price falls sharply, most of the multi-crystalline cell makers have no intention to lower high production utilization rates. Hence, as the demand of wafer consumption remains solid, multi-crystalline wafer makers have no immediate pressure to selloff stockpiles at this moment, leading the price to fall rather slightly. On the other hand, mono-crystalline wafer price falters this week despite the solid demand. Although the demand of mono-crystalline wafer remains steadily, it is not strong enough to stimulate the price of mono-crystalline wafer to go upwards. Instead, mono-crystalline wafer price is dragged down as affected by falling multi-crystalline wafer price and downstream components.

Multi-cystalline cell price continues to decline this week as the price competition between solar cell makers intensified to secure the orders after Chinese module makers sharply cancel the orders. As industry activity slows in China, Chinese module makers have to adjust their piled-up stock level, leading the procurement of multi-crystalline cells to decrease. Hence, while the utilization rate of most multi-crystalline cell makers remains high, the oversupply situation has pressure multi-crystalline cell makers to accommodate aggressive price competition in order to secure orders. Moreover, according to industry sources, since the shipments in early April were not as much as anticipated, the price swing should accelerate as the end of month approaches, due to the increasing pressure to digest swollen stockpiles by the end of month. On the other hand, mono-crystalline cell price tumbles this week, as impacted by the slumping multi-crystalline cell price. Although the demand of mono-crystalline cell is relatively solid, the expanded price gap with multi-crystalline cell leads the demand to falter slightly. Meanwhile, some solar cell makers have lowered their price quote of mono-crystalline cell in return for a better multi-crystalline cell price, leading mono-crystalline cell price to fall slightly this week.

Solar panel price drops consecutively this week. After being through the extensive price correction, solar panel price has been less volatile as prices in the US, EU and India gradually stabilize. On the other hand, the price in China and Japan remains pressured, due to the slowing domestic demand. In emerging countries, as Chinese module makers leverage price competition in the region to relieve swollen stockpiles, the price is also under pressure. As the result, the overall solar panel prices have become less volatile yet the pressure continues to persist.

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