A-share PV firms' Q1 solid on back of strong green demand, lower costs

A majority of Chinese photovoltaic companies reported robust first-quarter performances boosted by strong market demand and declining material prices, experts said.

Statistics from Soochow Securities showed that first-quarter revenue of solar power-related enterprises in the A-share market totaled approximately 270.86 billion yuan ($39.17 billion), a year-on-year growth of 37.81 percent, while net profits reached 37.45 billion yuan, up 55.67 percent year-on-year.

The reports came following a booming PV market in 2022, as the total revenue of the A-share PV sector is estimated to reach approximately 1.07 trillion yuan, up 75.64 percent year-on-year, with a total net profit of approximately 124.15 billion yuan, a yearly increase of 92.93 percent, according to Soochow Securities.

Commenting on the trend, Li Hengyuan, an analyst at Guosen Securities, noted that China's PV industry had shown both strong supply and demand in the first quarter. On the demand side, domestic PV installations and component exports showed significant growth, which supported stable prices of PV facilities such as modules. On the supply side, the output of silicon materials increased and prices continuously declined since March, which boded well for the development of PV companies.

Data from the National Energy Administration showed that in the first quarter, newly added grid-connected installed capacity of solar power increased 154.8 percent year-on-year to 33.66 million kilowatts. Data from PV consulting firm InfoLink Consulting showed that PV module exports totaled 50.9 gigawatts in the first quarter, a 37 percent year-on-year growth, while PV cells saw total exports of 8.6 GW, up 66 percent year-on-year.

Looking ahead to the second quarter, Li said that strong demand for PV modules will continue, while the supply of upstream silicon materials may steadily increase. The price difference between modules and silicon materials may expand, leading to an overall expansion of profitability for companies in the PV industry chain's middle and lower sectors.

PV company LONGi Green Energy Tech Co Ltd reported revenue of approximately 28.32 billion yuan, up 52.35 percent year-on-year, and net profits of approximately 3.64 billion yuan, a 36.55 percent yearly growth. Another leading PV enterprise, Tongwei Co Ltd, reported first-quarter revenue of approximately 33.24 billion yuan, with net profits of approximately 8.6 billion yuan, up 34.67 percent and 65.59 percent year-on-year, respectively.

Trina Solar's profit surged more than twofold year-on-year to 1.77 billion yuan, while Jinko Solar's net profit rocketed 313.36 percent on a yearly basis to 1.66 billion yuan.

Data from the PV information aggregator guangfu.bjx showed that a total of nine PV companies each saw over 900 million yuan in revenue in the first quarter.