Tongwei’s Q3 2024 business was negatively impacted by the sharp decline in PV prices
It was able to minimize the losses by lowering high-purity silicon production costs, among other measures
All of its PERC production lines have now transitioned to n-type; by 2024-end, its n-type cell capacity will exceed 100 GW
Chinese integrated solar PV manufacturer Tongwei Solar says the sharp decline in prices across the solar PV industry chain on a year-on-year (YoY) basis also impacted the price of its main products during Q3 2024, bringing down its revenues.
As a result, its quarterly revenues of RMB 24.48 billion ($3.44 billion) registered an YoY decline of 34.47%, according to the company’s stock exchange announcement. Along with PV manufacturing, Tongwei also operates agricultural and animal husbandry businesses.
For the initial 9 months of 2024, the revenues totaled RMB 68.27 billion, representing a YoY drop of 38.73%. It also posted a net loss of RMB 4.04 billion ($568.51 million) during the 3 quarters this year, a 125.81% decline over the previous year during which the Q3 net loss amounted to RMB 859.16 million ($121.76 million).
The Q3 net loss represented a decline of 128.44% YoY, but a reduction of RMB 2.34 billion ($329.32 million) compared to Q2 this year.
During its earnings call to discuss the results, the management said it was able to narrow down the Q3 loss primarily by bringing down the production cost of high-purity silicon and reducing the inventory impairment provisions for the module business. Additionally, an increase in the shipment of n-type cell products helped.
Calling the 4th quarter the peak season for bidding and order delivery, the management said production scheduling has increased slightly on a month-on-month (MoM) basis with the beginning of the last quarter this year. It now has sufficient orders on hand. This year, it also won several large orders from South Africa, the Middle East, Romania, and Spain among other regions (see Tongwei Contracts GW-Scale Solar Module Order In Saudi Arabia).
Tongwei’s inner Mongolia phase III 200,000-ton high-purity silicon facility was recently brought online. It has also now completed transitioning all of its PERC production lines to n-type, and its n-type cell production capacity will exceed 100 GW by the end of 2024.
While it has achieved fruitful research and development (R&D) results for various technologies, including TOPCon, heterojunction (HJT), XBC, and perovskite silicon stacked cells and modules, the company plans to focus on the economic and reliability aspects of new technologies. Recently, Tongwei announced 24.99% HJT module efficiency (see China Solar PV News Snippets).
Addressing the news regarding its planned acquisition of fellow Chinese vertically integrated solar PV manufacturer Runergy, Tongwei management said the company is currently in the process of auditing, and conducting due diligence in the matter through 3rd parties (see Tongwei Makes Offer To Acquire Majority Stake In Fellow Chinese Company).