The Association will contact PV equipment manufacturers worldwide in order to provide key information in a book to bill monthly ratio report.

ORLANDO, FL ― March 2011 ― The International PV Equipment Association (IPVEA), an independent, non-profit organization of manufacturers and suppliers of photovoltaic (PV) fabrication equipment and related raw materials, announces that it will contact PV equipment manufacturers worldwide in order to provide key information in a book to bill monthly ratio report.

Scheduled to begin this month, the program, which has been developed by VLSI Research on behalf of IPVEA, will collect monthly sales and billings data on PV manufacturing equipment worldwide. The information will be collected by an independent third party in a confidential manner and prepared on an aggregate basis in such a way that the data cannot be attributed to individual companies.

Surveys will be sent out to all suppliers of PV manufacturing equipment at the end of each month. The results of the survey will be published at the end of the following month.

"Having this new program in place will identify the key trends shaping and driving the global PV equipment marketplace," said Bryan Ekus, managing director of IPVEA.

"Participants will be contributing to valuable market statistics that are greatly needed by the industry: monthly book-to-bill data is the best way to keep track of what is happening in such a dynamic market," said John West, managing director of VLSI Research Europe Ltd.

VLSI Research is endeavoring to represent the entire PV Manufacturing Equipment market. Therefore, estimates will be added for companies that do not respond. By capturing this data monthly, the industry can track the performance of the market. Currently the program covers eight segments throughout seven regions: China, Japan, Korea, Europe, North America, Taiwan and Rest of World (ROW).

The equipment segments that will be covered include:
1. Total PV-Related Revenues ― includes service and support, and sales of third party equipment.
2. PV-Related Service and Support Revenues
3. OEM Polysilicon Equipment
4. OEM Wafering Equipment
5. OEM c-Si Cell and Module Equipment
6. OEM silicon thin film PV Equipment
7. OEM non-silicon thin film PV Equipment (CIGS and CdTe)
8. OEM Other PV Cell Technologies

IPVEA members will receive a consolidated report while survey respondents who are not IPVEA members will receive a summary of the results covering the period for which they participated. Additionally, general statistics will be made available to the industry through IPVEA press releases. A full report with commentary and further analysis will be available through subscription to VLSI Research's PV Manufacturing Equipment Database. Because VLSI Research will represent the entire PV Manufacturing Equipment market, estimates will be added for companies that did not respond.

VLSI Research has engaged the services of an independent data aggregator to collect the data. The directors and employees of VLSI Research and IPVEA are not privy to specific data from individual companies.

###

About International PV Equipment Association
Founded in May 2008, the International Photovoltaic Equipment Association (IPVEA) is an independent, non-profit organization of manufacturers and suppliers of photovoltaic (PV) fabrication equipment and related raw materials used in PV ingot, wafer, cell (crystalline and thin-film), and panel manufacturing. The overall mission of the association is to provide members with a forum for information, discussion and exchange of ideas, as well as ways to develop business opportunities and strategic partnerships. The association is the unified voice of the manufacturing segment of the PV industry. As such, the association evaluates and recommends exhibitions, conferences, sales channels and methods of communications that can be effective for its member companies. For more information, visit www.ipvea.org.