Green Energy Technology Inc (綠能科技), the nation’s biggest solar wafer maker, yesterday reported less than 2 percent revenue growth last month, marking its slowest monthly growth over the past three months.
Revenue rose 1.9 percent to a record high NT$2.37 billion (US$82 million) last month, after the company reported a 10.2 -percent month-on-month -expansion to NT$2.33 billion in March. That was the weakest monthly increase since January, when the firm said revenues expanded 0.8 percent month-on-month to NT$2.07 billion.
Compared with the same period last year, last month’s revenues soared nearly 96 percent from NT$1.21 billion.
Green Energy’s growth in -revenues last month went against the solar industry’s recent downtrend on stagnant demand in Europe, the world’s biggest solar market, amid speculation that the Italian government is considering cutting subsidies for green energy technologies.
The downtrend spread to demand for raw materials as the price of solar wafers fell to nearly US$3 per piece last week, Taipei-based market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report on Thursday.
“We are seeing price cutting to get orders,” TrendForce said.
Specifically, the price of -polysilicon wafers fell 6.31 percent to US$3.12 per piece last week from a week ago, according to TrendForce.
Soar cell makers, which usually suffer the brunt of any slumps, saw solar cell prices drop 2.92 percent to US$1.096 per watt, while the spot price has fallen to US$0.95 per watt, below most manufacturers’ costs of US$1 per watt, the researcher said.
Shares of Green Energy plunged 5.26 percent to NT$117 on Friday, underperforming the benchmark TAIEX, which edged 0.36 percent lower. The local stock market was closed yesterday.
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