Silicon Wafer Price War Escalates: Mono and Multi Wafer Prices Tumble
The solar industry is witnessing a dramatic shift as silicon wafer prices experience a significant downturn. What began as a strategic price adjustment by leading monocrystalline wafer manufacturer Longi Group has evolved into a full-scale price war, with multicrystalline wafer producers such as GCL-Poly and Yingli Solar quickly following suit. Within a single month, prices for monocrystalline wafers have dropped by 14.3%, while multicrystalline wafers have seen reductions ranging from 12% to 15%.
Rapid Price Declines Reshape the Market
Since the start of the year, the market has been hit by successive waves of price cuts. Last week alone, multicrystalline wafer prices changed on a daily basis, with the latest weekly decline exceeding 5%. In response, monocrystalline wafer makers have been forced to implement even steeper reductions to narrow the price gap with their multicrystalline counterparts.
Industry insiders view these proactive price cuts as both a competitive strategy and an inevitable market trend. To survive this price war, wafer manufacturers must continue to reduce costs and improve operational efficiency.
Timeline of the Price War
The price war traces its origins to late last year and early this year. Longi Group announced a price reduction of RMB 0.2 per wafer effective January 1st, bringing the price of 180μm monocrystalline wafers to RMB 5.4 per piece and 190μm wafers to RMB 5.55 per piece. Shortly thereafter, another RMB 0.2 per wafer cut was implemented.
Meanwhile, multicrystalline wafer producers, led by GCL-Poly and Yingli Solar, rapidly followed with their own price reductions. Prices fell from over RMB 4.7 per wafer to between RMB 3.8 and RMB 4.1 by the following Saturday. Just one day later, Longi announced another substantial cut of RMB 0.4 per wafer, bringing 180μm monocrystalline wafers down to RMB 4.8 per piece.
Polysilicon Demand Remains Strong
Despite the turmoil in wafer pricing, the upstream polysilicon market tells a different story. On February 5th, Longi Group announced a three-year polysilicon supply agreement with South Korea’s OCI, valued at over USD 1 billion. The following day, Daqo New Energy revealed that it had signed long-term supply contracts with multiple leading Chinese solar manufacturers, with 90.2% of its 2018 production capacity already committed.
Industry Perspectives on the Price Adjustments
Lv Jinbiao, Vice President of GCL-Poly, commented on the recent price war: “The typical price difference between mono and multi wafers is around RMB 0.8 per piece, but the industry consensus for a reasonable gap is between RMB 0.3 and RMB 0.4.” He attributed the latest round of price cuts to the traditional slow season in Q1 and downstream module price reductions. Despite the lower prices, GCL-Poly’s wafer orders remain robust, and the company views the price cuts as a way to ensure downstream profitability.
As the price war continues to unfold, all eyes are on how manufacturers will balance market share protection with sustainable profitability in the months ahead.
Source: Original WeChat article