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| Author | InfoLink |
| Updated | February 08, 2018 |
Due to the change of mainstream products, the price quotes of slurry multi-Si wafers, cells, and 190µm mono-Si wafers will not be provided starting from this week. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
As the Lunar New Year approaches, manufacturers began to hold conservative attitudes toward the market demand. Polysilicon prices remained high, while the mono and multi-Si wafer markets witnessed more intense price competition between them. Cell prices stayed just slightly above the cost line after plummeting for few weeks. Future price drop of cells will depend on the decline of wafer prices. Overall, the price fluctuation has become more stable before the Lunar New Year. Yet, the weak demand after the Lunar New Year will lower the entire supply chain prices.
Polysilicon
Wafer manufacturers have started to put pressures on polysilicon makers, requesting RMB 130-140/kg. However, top-tier polysilicon makers preferred to maintain prices at a higher level before the Lunar New Year as they barely have any stock left. They do so also to prevent more intense price decline after the Lunar New Year. Since polysilicon and wafer makers can’t reach a compromise, the transaction of polysilicon was weak this week. Polysilicon is still priced at RMB 150/kg for some orders (mono-Si wafer use).
Despite the weak transaction, the average trading prices of polysilicon have begun to drop for small-volume orders (multi-Si wafer use), reaching RMB 140-150/kg. Once prices start to drop for top-tier manufacturers, polysilicon prices for multi-Si use will decline faster than mono-Si use.
Wafer
Leading mono-Si wafer maker, Longi, suddenly announced to lower mono-Si wafer prices to RMB 4.8/piece and US$ 0.67/piece this past weekend. As multi-Si wafer is priced at RMB 3.9-4/piece and US$ 0.56/piece this week, the price gap between mono and multi-Si wafer shrunk to RMB 0.8-0.9/piece and US$ 0.11/piece.
After Longi lowered the price significantly, other second-tier mono-Si wafer makers followed suit in order to control inventory level. However, Longi’s price is almost equal to the cost line of many mono-Si wafer makers. Most second-tier Chinese mono-Si wafer makers chose to adjust utilization rates downward in February.
Cell
Under the current multi-Si wafer prices, it’s difficult for multi-Si cell prices to drop further from RMB 1.35/W. At the same time, cell makers have continually lowered the capacity utilization rates, which caused multi-Si cell price to reach RMB 1.35/W this week. Conventional mono-Si cell is priced at RMB 1.55-1.6/W as well. On the other hand, the mono-Si PERC cell market still has rooms for more profits. In addition, mono-Si wafer prices dropped substantially this week, leading to lower mono-Si PERC cell prices in China. The average trading price of mono-Si PERC cells reached RMB 1.65-1.7/W in China and US$ 0.22-0.25/W in the overseas.
Module
The Chinese mono and multi-Si module markets continued to witness lower prices. Recently, prices of conventional multi-Si modules mostly dropped below RMB 2.6/W for utility-scale projects. Due to the weak demand before and after the Lunar New Year, many module manufacturers will lower the capacity utilization rates in February.