Search the Community

Having purchased CEDR since the start I have now acquired 2 full years of data. This makes trend analysis a meaningful and fun exercise. I did a trailing twelve months (TTM) trend analysis of CN9 that I'd like to share with the club (as always odyd, feel free to delete it if you think it is excessive exposure of data). Each month in the attached chart represents the sum of monthly exports the past 12 months. By using 12 month compounded exports the seasonality effect is eliminated from the trend lines and the trendlines should thus reflect pure competive strength trend on the global market. It's quite clear that the "investable" CN4 have had a strong trend in the global market share competition. It is also clear that financially stressed Suntech and China Sunergy lost a lot with their hands financially tied. Also significantly financially stressed Yingli with nose just above water (unlike Suntech and CSUN) lost their dominance. Slightly less stressed Renesola have had trouble growing their global presence after their huge success in 2012 and early 2013. Note that their relatively new global OEM manufacturing base might distort CEDR's reflection of their global shipments for recent months. HSOL always having mediocre product offering and marketing compared to leaders is a long-term lagger that grows slower. Despite having been around much longer as module brand than many others they achive less volume, especially considering that a lot of their exports lately are tolled QCELLs modules. Edit: I'm adding an index style chart, where they all start at 100 in June 2013. This illustrates the difference in growth rates more clearly. Solar9 in total grew global presence with 17% the past year. Biggest losers Suntech and CSUN lost 50% of their presence, while biggest winners Jinko and JA gained around 90% global presence. Edit2: I'm adding total shipment charts as well for the same period. The monthly data was based on estimates and interpolation of monthly domestic shipments from quarterly total shipments and monthly export data. Some definitions are needed. For total shipments only external products sales related shipments are included. Any shipments related to internal downstream projects, processing service for other brands or warranty replacements etc. are thus excluded. For exports this is not true. There all shipments are included, but in most cases internal downstream projects and processing service for other brands are likely more negligible than for domestic shipments (HSOL tolling QCELLs module and exporting them to high ASP markets and CSIQ global projects being the most significant exceptions). For 14Q2 the guided/guestimated total external module shipments was used. Note that Suntech could not be included in total shipments as there's no visibility there, but I kept them in export charts since although Suntech ADS is worthless Wuxi Suntech is still a panel market player, now in the hands of the new cowboy in town (Shunfeng). Module exports grew 17% for Solar9 in the period, but total external module shipments grew 40% for Solar8. This is partially explained by Suntech drag not being included in total shipments and domestic shipment growing fast than international (naturally as China market has grown faster than international market the past 2 years). Note also that the "domestic" sales part (diff between total and export shipments) actually would include international module manufacturing too. SOL and CSIQ should have the most significant impact from that. A couple of interesting conclusions are that several of those losing market share on the international scene have been able to exploit domestic demand to retain utilization levels despite that loss, but likely at the cost of lower margins. Yingli increasingly continue and CSUN, SOL and likely Suntech massively started to rely on domestic demand to keep their manufacturing lines busy, while HSOL are still skeptical about betting much on domestic market. Trina keep and CSIQ started to exploiting domestic demand peaks, while both being strong in international market between the domestic booms. Jinko maintain a strong and stable domestic presence while growing international presence. JA is reducing domestic presence and managing to more than offset that with fast growing international presence (applies to cells as well). Even though trend for CN4 leaders is not as strong for total shipments as for exports I still view this as a signal of the CN4 brand and financial strength. They gain in the most attractive markets that have tougher barriers, while the weak have to resort to the less attractive but more accessible domstestic market. Edit3: Attached charts updated for Q2 actuals and July CEDR. Edit4: Attached charts updated for August CEDR.