Li Xiande, chairman of Jingke Energy, recently delivered a New Year speech, saying that the performance value of N-type Topcon products can fully support its current price level.
Taking TigerNeo, his own product, as an example, he bluntly said that the performance of Jingke energy products has exceeded the efficiency ceiling of Sunpower and LG, and the price is 2/3 of the latter, so there is no need to reduce the price.
"If we want to drop it, it is also because our N-type is larger, the yield is higher, the supply chain is more stable, the production cost is lower, and we are willing to give excess profits to customers, that's all."
What gives Li Xiande the confidence to "keep prices down"?
On the one hand, it may be the "conservatism" of the price increase of components when the price of silicon soared in the early stage.
Li Xiande asked in his speech, "When the silicon material increases by 400%, will the components also increase by 400%?" ? If you want to make money, you must have virtue. It's a natural law to spit it out when you eat it. "-indeed, compared with the price of 1.6 yuan/watt in 2020, the highest price of components at present is about 2 yuan/watt, with an increase of only 25%.
On the other hand, it is the volume of the company: he believes that for a company with a cumulative shipment of 1.30 GW and a component production capacity of 70GW, its long-term strategy, medium-term technical route and short-term capacity planning will not change because of the cyclical ups and downs of a certain raw material, but at most it will only be the adjustment of pace frequency.
_ The price of photovoltaic industry chain plummeted across the board-except for components.
Recently, the price of silicon materials has plummeted, and the price of silicon wafers has been adjusted accordingly. Previously, these two links accounted for most of the profits of the entire photovoltaic industry chain. Therefore, many brokers pointed out that the excess income of silicon materials and wafers will be redistributed in the industrial chain, and components are naturally expected to benefit.
The recent price trend of the industrial chain seems to confirm Li Xiande's judgment that "components can't keep up with the decline"-recently, a number of photovoltaic consulting institutions announced a new round of quotations for polysilicon, silicon wafers, batteries and components. Except that the prices of spare parts did not plummet, the prices of other industries plummeted across the board.
On a week-on-week basis, the price of polysilicon fell by more than 23%, that of monocrystalline silicon by 9%, and that of battery by 13%- 16%. However, the decline of components is extremely limited, less than 3%.
Implementing the specific orders, the TrendForce report shows that the orders of a small number of component SMEs are still loose and it is difficult to conduct high-level transactions; Recently, there is still a certain demand for orders in the market, and the first-line enterprises have a stable shipment, and the transaction price has no obvious fluctuation.
Parts orders are generally signed in advance, with a long period, and there is usually a certain time interval between the signing and delivery of sales contracts, so parts have certain futures attributes. Soochow securities analysts pointed out that the upstream excess returns shifted to the downstream, the component futures attributes increased profits, and the manufacturers with a large proportion of integrated and overseas and distributed shipments made better profits.
However, in the long run, on the whole, analysts believe that components have profit space, price reduction expectations in the later period, and there is no lack of possibility of decline.
TF Securities pointed out that at present, the external quotations of component enterprises are mostly maintained at around 1.85 yuan/watt. PVinfolink predicts that in the first quarter of 2023, components can see 1.7- 1.88 yuan per watt, with a price of 0.22-0.23 yuan per watt.
However, the short-term profit flow will not last long after all, and technology may still be the ultimate password for high profits of industrial chain manufacturers. Analysts pointed out that in 2023, 30-70% of the two leading components, TOPCon and BC, will be new technologies. Related manufacturers are expected to enjoy a premium and increase the average profit.