On February 8th, 2012 IHS iSuppli (El Segundo, California, U.S.) announced the release of a new report which estimates that shipments of solar photovoltaic (PV) inverters declined 1% in 2011 to 23.4 GW, as total industry revenues fell 15% to USD 6.1 billion.

The "IHS iSuppli PV Inverter Market Tracker" report estimates that prices fell 14% during 2011. The report also estimates that shipments will grow 5% during 2012 to 24.5 GW, but that revenues will fall another 3%, with revenues recovering in the following years.

“The slump in 2011 inverter shipments is mainly attributed to challenging conditions in the photovoltaics markets in the key countries of Germany and the Czech Republic,” said IHS iSuppli Senior Director for PV Research Greg Sheppard.

“Shipments in Germany declined after the industry there stalled, while shipments in the Czech Republic fell off a cliff—after the government in Prague cut tariffs to deliberately slow down an otherwise superheated expansion. Luckily, much of the loss was made up by growth in other markets.”

China, U.S. inverter markets grow

German inverter shipments fell to 6.1 GW in 2011 from 9.9 GW in 2010, and shipments in the Czech Republic collapsed to only 55 MW in 2011 after 1.5 GW of inverters were shipped in 2010.

The report identifies China and the United States as the two largest growth markets. Chinese inverter shipments increased to 1.6 GW in 2011 from 691 MW in 2010, whereas U.S. shipments climbed from 1.5 GW to 2.8 GW. IHS iSuppli estimates that these two markets and Japan will represent the largest growth in inverter sales in 2012.

SMA retains 31% market share

IHS iSuppli estimates that SMA Solar Technology AG (Niestetal, Germany) retained 31% of the global market share during the year. The company puts Power-One Inc. (Camarillo, California, U.S.) as having the second-largest sales with 12% market share, as well as the most sales into the Italian PV market.

Overall, the top 10 inverter suppliers accounted for 75% of the global inverter market. The remaining eight leading companies are all European, with the exception of Satcon Corporation (Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.).

2012-02-08| Courtesy: IHS iSuppli; Image Source: SMA Solar Technology AG | solarserver.com © Heindl Server GmbH

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