Recently, JA Solar, JinkoSolar, and LONGi Green Energy successively released their investor relations activity records for April 2026, disclosing the companies' latest operating conditions.
JA Solar
JA Solar stated that its overall business strategy for 2026 will focus on "balancing volume and price." While emphasizing internal capacity building, the company aims to maintain its shipment volume in the industry's top tier.
In the first quarter of 2026, the company's cell and module shipments reached 11.87GW (including 11.7MW for internal use), with overseas module shipments accounting for 77.16% of the total.
The company believes that current module prices have gradually entered a relatively reasonable range. With the price correction of upstream silicon materials, the release of demand in high-margin overseas markets, and the volume growth of new products, operating conditions are expected to improve in the second half of the year, and the company has proposed a goal of turning losses into profits for the full year.
In response to the cost pressure brought by high upstream silver prices, the company's silver-coated copper technology solution has matured and has been smoothly verified in the laboratory and in small-scale mass production. However, adhering to the principle of "quality first," the company is prudently advancing its large-scale application based on customer needs, while simultaneously exploring consumption reduction solutions for pure silver paste to seek the optimal combination of cost and performance.
Regarding its overseas footprint, building upon the stable operation of its Vietnam base, the company has also participated in the construction of a 6GW high-efficiency cell and 3GW high-power module project in Oman, in order to enhance the resilience of its global supply chain and to cope with changes in international trade policies.
Besides its core photovoltaic (PV) business, the energy storage business is regarded as an important future growth direction for the company. JA Solar stated that it officially established an energy storage business division in 2025, focusing on exploring the synergistic model of solar and storage, as well as innovating technical solutions and business models. Currently, it primarily targets overseas markets, with products leaning towards commercial and industrial energy storage, supplemented by residential energy storage, adopting an asset-light and fast-turnaround strategy.
JinkoSolar
In the first quarter of 2026, JinkoSolar still demonstrated strong business resilience amid the challenges of severe price fluctuations in commodities such as silver. Leveraging its global channels and product advantages, the company seized opportunities in overseas markets, achieving module shipments of 13.7GW and continuing to maintain its position as the global number one.
Driven by the optimization of its product structure, the company's high-power products above 640W are widely welcomed by global customers. The proportion of these shipments in the first quarter increased significantly to nearly one-quarter, realizing an overall premium of approximately 1 cent/W compared to regular products.
Benefiting from this, the company's comprehensive gross profit margin in the first quarter reached 6.16%, a significant year-on-year increase of 9.45%, and the net profit attributable to the parent company also achieved a quarter-on-quarter reduction in losses. Meanwhile, the company's energy storage business advanced steadily; in the first quarter, the gross profit margin of energy storage was approximately 16%, with system product deliveries reaching 1.42GWh and recognized revenue corresponding to 523MWh.
To address cost pressures, the company is introducing base metalization technology on a large scale, expecting that by the third quarter of this year, the cost of its high-efficiency Flying Tiger 3 (Tiger Neo 3) products will be highly competitive.
In terms of technology research and development, the company has established a joint venture with XtalPi to build a high-throughput smart perovskite laboratory based on AI and robotics. It is expected to take about three years to achieve a certain scale of commercial mass production of perovskite tandem cells.
Regarding the U.S. market, which possesses long-term potential, the company expects its U.S. shipments in 2026 to account for 5% to 10% of its total global shipments. Facing supply constraints in the U.S. market, the company is actively laying out localized manufacturing capacity for solar and storage in the U.S. and establishing diversified supply pathways in collaboration with suppliers to guarantee delivery.
JinkoSolar projects a total module shipment target of 75GW to 85GW for the full year of 2026.
LONGi Green Energy
In Q1 2026, LONGi's BC (Back Contact) module shipments reached 8.34GW, accounting for 66% of its total module shipments, and the overseas proportion of module shipments in the first quarter exceeded 60%.
However, the gross profit margin of modules did not see a significant increase. In response to this, LONGi stated that the modules delivered in the first quarter were mostly centralized orders signed earlier, with prices agreed upon previously; meanwhile, the recent sharp rise in silver prices has driven up costs, and order prices have not followed up in real-time. At the same time, the company carried out multiple technical upgrades on its production lines in the first quarter, meaning the BC production capacity was not fully utilized, and module costs were not in an optimal state.
To cope with the significant increase in silver prices, the company has successfully developed the Alloy Contact Matrix (ACM) technology platform. The construction of related large-scale production capacity is currently being advanced, and it is expected that a 20GW production line will be completed in June 2026, roughly realizing 8GW of product deliveries in the second half of the year.
From a strategic layout perspective, LONGi's goal in the PV business direction is to achieve comprehensive BC adoption. In the future, the company will continue to enhance its core technologies and BC capacity scale, and continuously develop scenario-based products. It is expected that by the fourth quarter of 2026, 50% of the company's mainstream products will see their power output upgraded to between 670W and 680W.
As for the energy storage business, the company launched a full-stack self-developed energy storage system product in April 2026, marking the entry of its energy storage strategy into a substantive business implementation phase, and has set a target of 6GWh for energy storage system shipments in 2026. Currently, the most important markets for the company's energy storage business are China, Europe, Australia, and the United States. For the U.S. market in particular, it has established a local energy storage subsidiary through LONGi Control.
Source:EnergyTrend
