According to the latest global module shipment ranking in 2021 released by PV InfoLink, a third-party Market Research and consulting agency in the photovoltaic field, Chinese companies occupy eight seats among the top 10 photovoltaic module suppliers and rank among the top six. According to the statistics of InfoLink supply and demand database, after Longji ranked first in the list in 2020, it will continue to rank first in 2021. It is estimated that the total shipment of domestic and export components far exceeds the second place by more than 10GW.
Due to the significant increase in the concentration of component links in 2021, the list ranks the manufacturers within 1% of the total shipment gap in parallel, and the second place is Trina Solar and Jingao. Jingke ranks fourth, followed by Atlas, Risen Energy Co.Ltd(300118) , Hanhua Q-Cells, first solar, Suntech and Chint.
InfoLink’s global component shipment ranking in 2021
There is no suspense about the “global component shipment ranking” of Chinese enterprises. PV tech, the media of photovoltaic industry, recently announced the top ten global component suppliers in 2021, which is basically consistent with the ranking of InfoLink, but there are differences in the seventh to ninth places.
PV tech 2021 global top 10 PV module suppliers
With the strong growth of the global photovoltaic power generation industry, the magnitude of the list jumped sharply. Surging news noted that 10 years ago, when a company’s annual component shipments exceeded 1GW, it could rank among the top 10. Now, the basic component shipments of top 5 manufacturers are more than 10GW.
From the specific ranking, the top 10 shippers in 2021 are basically the same as those in 2020. The biggest change is Jingke energy, which ranked second in global component shipments in 2020 and fourth in 2021. This is related to the temporary adjustment of product sales strategy in order to stabilize profits in the rising price tide of the industrial chain. Jingke energy mentioned in the prospectus that due to the rising price of silicon material and other reasons, the company strategically reduced the acquisition and execution of low-cost component orders in the first half of 2021, negotiated with customers for low-cost orders and extended the delivery time, According to the market supply and demand and price, the external sales of silicon wafers and battery wafers have been increased.
In 2021, the shipment volume of manufacturers ranking behind the top 10 fell to the level of 3-4gw, indicating that the differentiation between manufacturers was significantly enlarged. According to InfoLink’s analysis, from the trend of 2021, there is still a high degree of centralization in the component link. Vertically integrated manufacturers suppress second and third tier component manufacturers with their own size, cost advantages and overseas channels. The top 10 component shipments in InfoLink’s statistical table are about 160gw +, accounting for 172.6gw of the annual component demand, far exceeding the previous 70-80% share, and the market share exceeds 90%. According to the observation of the proportion of dismantling overseas shipments, vertically integrated manufacturers have obvious advantages in the distribution channel layout. In the second half of the year, the proportion of overseas price acceptance regions has increased significantly, and the proportion of Chinese manufacturers in the top 10 has reached 70% in the whole year.
In terms of size, according to InfoLink statistics, the large-size shipments of top 10 manufacturers (excluding first solar) fell above 60GW, of which the second half doubled compared with the first half, and the large-size accounted for about 40% of the total shipments of top 10 manufacturers (excluding first solar) in the whole year, which has become the current mainstream standard.
The agency believes that the high concentration trend is bound to make it more difficult for small and medium-sized component manufacturers to survive. Looking forward to the follow-up component links following the expansion of type N, some manufacturers still have a large number of battery and component expansion plans. At present, it is not ruled out that the price competition will repeat in the second half of the year when they compete for market share. Superimposed on the impact of the shortage of raw materials, small and medium-sized component manufacturers still have to face the test of market share, sluggish start-up and profit.
