Motech Industries posts record-high sales of solar cells

Motech Industries Inc (茂迪), the nation's biggest manufacturer of solar cells, posted record sales for last month and is expecting growth momentum to continue based on a stable supply of raw materials.

Sales for last month rose to NT$1.41 billion (US$43.1 million), an increase of 98.97 percent compared with the same month last year and 1.77 percent higher than in August, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.

For the first nine months of the year, sales jumped by 121.39 percent from the same period a year ago to NT$11.12 billion, the company said.

"The uptrend will continue through the end of this year," Motech said in the filing.

Motech said last Wednesday that it had signed a 10-year supply contract for polycrystalline silicon with Wacker Chemie AG at NT$1.84 billion.

The German silicon manufacturer will start supplying the raw material for solar cells from 2009, Motech said.

Solar cell manufacturers have been scrambling to secure polycrystalline silicon supplies amid a shortage in the industry.

Motech also announced last Wednesday that it would invest NT$300 million in establishing an automatic logistics center and a research center in Tainan Science Park (台南科學園區) to enhance production efficiency.

It said that it would build a facility in the US state of Colorado to develop mass production technology of second-generation amorphous silicon solar cells that could yield higher conversion efficiency, Motech said.