Solar module continues on moderate price downtrend this week due to system deployment slow down in China and Japan. Although connection demand in the US and EU is improving, their growth is not substantial enough to recover the connection decline in Asia. Therefore, the weakening downstream demand still poses price cut pressure on modules this week.

Solar cell price moderately drop this week due increasing price cut pressure from modules. Weak module demand in China especially drives down its domestic multi cell pricing. While under the context of US antidumping investigation, Taiwanese multi cell demand is solid and enjoys some price premium. As such, overall multi cell pricing decline is more moderate. On the other hand, overall mono cell pricing declines more dramatic due to Taiwanese mono cell price drop. Previously, Taiwanese and Chinese mono cells have price gap. However, as Japanese and EU module players enlarge their cell procurement from China, Taiwanese mono cells face increasing price cut pressure. With the lower quote pricing Chinese cells, module players request lower Taiwanese cell prices. Therefore, pricing gap between Chinese and Taiwanese mono cells narrows and leads to the mono cell price decline this week.

Multi wafer price continues on the downtrend this week. Weak downstream demand in China affects its domestic wafer pricing as inventory builds up in the supply chain. At the same time, wafer companies still maintain high factory utilization creating excess supply in the market when demand is slowing down since many have already recruited new headcounts. Furthermore, cell companies become more conservative on wafer procurement as they expect further wafer price decline under weak downstream demand. Therefore, excess wafer supply and slower procurement continues to pressure multi wafer prices. Multi wafer price in Taiwan is also negatively impacted by price cuts in China as some traders and Chinese solar companies try selling their excess wafers to Taiwanese cell companies at a more competitive pricing. As such, Taiwanese wafer companies are facing increasing price cut pressure and the multi wafer price gap between Taiwanese and Chinese players is narrowing. On the other hand, mono wafer price remains stable under rising demand from Japan, the US and China. Since polysilicon price uptrend slows down, mono wafer companies maintain stable pricing level.

Polysilicon prices remain stable this week. Although wafer prices are on the downtrend, high wafer utilizations support stable polysilicon consumption. Current polysilicon pricing in China stays around RMB160/kg. Polysilicon traded outside China also maintains stable pricing under constant demand.