Recent wafer spot price reflected a downtrend. Price quotes for high-efficiency multi-si wafer dropped from US$1.04-1.05/piece in mid-March to US$1.02-1.04/piece lately. For normal-grade products, quotation also declined from US$1.01-1.0/piece to US$1.0-0.98/piece, noted EnergyTrend, a research division of TrendForce. Manufacturers are likely to be moreconservative when placing orders as demands from China started to decline at the end of March. Whether market demand willincrease later on still remains to be seen.

 

“Price fluctuation this time was caused by decreased Chinese demand,” said Arthur Hsu, Research Manager of EnergyTrend. ”Major Chinese manufacturers’ high-efficiency products price quotes came to RMB6.5-6.8/piece. Price quotes for first-tier manufacturers have dropped to RMB7.0/piece, which affected Chinese manufacturers’ overseas quotation.” Based on EnergyTrend’s price investigation, Chinese manufacturers’ quotation has declined to US$1.03-1.02/piece while Taiwanese manufacturers still floated around US$ 1.05-1.03/piece. Thus, Taiwanese manufacturers have been asked to reduce price by clients.

 

On the other hand, Chinese manufacturers’ plans to increase shipments to Taiwan is another reason why prices fluctuated. “GCL increased shipments to Taiwan the most. In fact, their target is to increase from 32 million pieces each month in Q1 to 50 million pieces each month in Q2. Their major competitors’ shipments to Taiwan will remain at 35 million pieces per month. Prices will be cut down from high levels in 1Q14 to sell out the extra 18 million pieces shipped to Taiwan since March,” added Hsu.

 

This Week’s Price Quotes

 

In terms of this week’s spot market, polysilicon price has remained steady. For multi-si wafer, price quotes for Chinese manufacturers continued to decline, with this week’s average price reaching US$1.026/piece, a 1.91% drop. For mono-si wafer, price remained flat. For cell, this week’s price was still at US$0.392/watt. But module price has slightly declined, with average price reaching US$0.623/watt, a 0.95% dip. Also, quotation for thin-film modules and inverters decreased. Thin-film module price dropped 0.33% to US$0.605/watt and inverter price slid 1.6% to US$0.184/watt.