The inventory control of upstream multi-si wafers has been effective. With international end demand support, si-wafer price fluctuation stabilized this week, affecting upstream polysilicon’s production start-up rate. In terms of downstream PV cells and modules, there were still two extreme conditions for China at home and abroad and large and small factories. Stable overseas demand assisted China’s first-tier integrated manufacturers. The small- and medium-sized factories, which relied on the domestic market in the past, had to depend on OEM orders distributed by these integrated manufacturers.

Polysilicon

This week, there have been different changes in the prices of polysilicon. The production start-up rate of multi-si wafer has increased since last week, making the demand for multi-si material bounce back. However, the first-tier manufacturers still wanted to maintain price stability. Thus, they signed the orders of July at the original price. The rise of downstream production start-up rate made the second-tier manufacturers begin to digest inventory and improve production start-up rate, slightly increasing the low price. So far, China’s multi-si material price has remained at RMB 80-85/KG, and mono-si material price has remained at RMB 90-100/KG.

In terms of productivity reduction, after a 27.7% cut in June, there is expected to be an additional cut of 5% in July, bringing the total to 32.7%, which is equivalent to about 100,000 tons. The number of China’s domestic and overseas manufacturers, which cut production and conducted overhaul, has increased to 14. Overseas multi-si material price didn’t change much. Yet, due to the change of exchange rate, global average price of multi-si material fell slightly.

Si-wafer

The clearing out of multi-si wafer inventory has gone smoothly, and the stock level has reached a new low point in nearly a month, which represented a good balance of supply and demand for manufacturers to control. As there were still some terminal demands, some manufacturers started to raise their equipment utilization rate. There was even a shortage of multi-si demand in the market. First-tier manufacturers tried to take advantage of this, but have not yet succeeded.

So far, multi-si wafer price has reached RMB2.40-2.50/Pc. Manufacturers expected RMB2.45/Pc as the minimum stop loss point. Mono-si wafer price remained unchanged at RMB3.20-3.37/Pc. Overseas prices were also unchanged. Prices of mono-si and multi-si wafer remained at US$0.445-0.455/Pc and US$0.32-0.345/Pc, respectively.

PV cell

This week, PV cell factories adopted a flat-price strategy to deal with the market. The drop of price has stopped temporarily. Yet, the supply structure hasn’t changed. The demand of China’s first-tier manufacturers was supported by overseas orders. However, small- and medium-sized manufacturers could only rely on the OEM orders from the first-tier manufacturers.

So far, price of generalmono-si PV cell in China has remained at RMB1.05-1.15/W, and high-efficiency mono-si PV cell price has remained at RMB1.20-1.28/W. For multi-si PV cell, the general multi-si PV cell price of first-tier manufacturers has reached RMB1.05-1.10/W. Prices of mono-si and multi-si PV cell have started to overlap.

Overseas orders were stable. So far, price of generalmono-si PV cell has slightly decreased to US$0.152-0.160/W. High-efficiency mono-si PV cell price has remained at US$0.179-0.183/W, and multi-si PV cell price has reached US$0.133-0.136/W.

Module

This week, the general multi-si module price could remain flat owing to the demand on the market. The price of 270W module of China’s first-tier manufacturers could achieve RMB2.05-2.10/W. Some quotes of high-efficiency multi-si module followed the general multi-si module, causing price reduction. The price range of multi-si module was RMB1.90-2.35/W.

On the other hand, mono-si market demand slowed down after June 30. In particular, the high-efficiency mono-si module bid of SPIC is expected to lower the price, resulting in RMB2.30-2.40/W of high-efficiency mono-si module price, which will influence the general mono-si module price to drop to RMB2.10-2.30/W.

In terms of overseas market, the price was unchanged.