Leading Chinese solar glass manufacturer Flat Glass Group says increase in demand from overseas market and the growth of overseas sales volume in H1/2023 led to the company experiencing faster growth in its international sales revenue compared to the Chinese mainland regions.
While Mainland China sales revenues of RMB 7.52 billion increased by 27.52% over the previous year, overseas markets improved their share by 53.36% to RMB 2.16 billion.
Its total group sales revenues added up to RMB 9.67 billion for the 1st half of 2023, representing YoY growth of 32.50%, including RMB 8.78 billion sales from solar PV glass. There was 35.85% annual increase in PV glass sales, partially offset by the decrease in average selling price (ASP).
The management reports gross profit of RMB 1.85 billion for the reporting period with an 11.87% jump over the same period last year, while gross profit margin dropped 3.52 percentage points to 19.12% due to a decrease in ASPs for PV glass in view of increased supply in the market. Another reason for the decrease in gross profit margin was the high price of major raw materials, including soda ash and natural gas during the time.
It added, "On the other hand, in the first half of 2023, given the weak demand from the Chinese market, the average selling price of float glass decreased but the average cost of raw materials and energy soared, which caused a slump in the gross margin of float glass, and also impacted the overall gross profit."
Apart from solar PV glass, Flat Glass Group also produces float glass, architectural glass and household glass at its manufacturing facilities spread across China and in Vietnam's Haiphong. China, Korea, India, Germany, Turkey, Mexico, the US and Southeast Asia are the group's major markets.
However, it is solar PV glass that drives the group's business. It plans to add 4 PV glass furnaces with a daily melting capacity of 1,200 tons in Nantong city in China's Jiangsu province to cater to growing demand for large-size and thin glass from the industry.
At the end of June 2023, Flat Glass's cumulative daily melting capacity was 20,600 tons, with large furnaces of 1,000 tons and above accounting for nearly 90% of its existing production lines.
"Compared to small furnaces, large furnaces have more stable combustion and temperature inside and lower unit consumption, thereby helping further improve finished product ratio. Therefore, the Group will independently develop daily large furnaces based on the existing furnace scale. After breaking through the technology bottlenecks of large furnaces, the Group will further reduce costs and strengthen its competitive advantage in the PV glass industry," it shared.
Earlier this year, Flat Glass announced plans to invest in a 1 GW cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film solar cell facility (see China PV News Snippets).
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