In Europe, there was no sign of the demand recovery as the weak EUR against the USD continuously weakened the procurement plans of European module buyers who become more and more conservative. In China, the market situation sustained dull and might pass through May. To conclude, global module demand was depressed this week, and overall module prices maintained bearish.

Overall module price descended considerably this week, as the worldwide market condition remained idle. In the US, demand on solar module was raising up as the growing numbers of YieldCo with the increasing solar power system projects. Nevertheless, the US solar system developers took the advantages of global module price downtrend and requested solar module makers to offer lower prices in the US as well. Additionally, Japanese market was still in the slack season, since the reduced supporting scheme in April and July made the Japanese demand worsen. Chinese module makers offered price reductions actively in Japan to stimulate the solar demand or fought for the limited orders. In Europe, there was no sign of the demand recovery as the weak EUR against the USD continuously weakened the procurement plans of European module buyers who become more and more conservative. In China, the market situation sustained dull and might pass through May. To conclude, global module demand was depressed this week, and overall module prices maintained bearish.

Overall solar cell price decreased remarkably this week. Due to the weak global demand, the price pressure on cell makers remained strong this week. Tier one cell suppliers engaged aggressive price reduction to garner limited orders from smaller cell manufacturers. With the fierce price competition, 2nd and 3rd tier cell makers were forced to adjust their prices in order to maintain their dimming order visibilities. Another thing is that Chinese module makers usually used Taiwanese solar cells to ship to Europe in order to bypass the EU MIP restriction. Consequently, the slow demand in Europe impacted Taiwanese PV cells makers the most recently. Therefore, the price pressure dragged down solar cell price further this week.
Overall wafer price dropped moderately this week. Despite the weak demand, major wafer suppliers were not keen to lower their price quotes further to excite the demand. However, some 2nd and 3rd wafer makers still offered lower price products to the market due to their tight cash flow not allowing them to build up their inventories. Without inventory strategy, they were not able to stand against the price downtrend. Thus, overall wafer price was unflavored.
Poly-silicon price decreased marginally this week. Major poly-silicon manufacturers tended to defend their current selling prices. However, poly-silicon buyers expected the price would go lower in the near future, considering the dismal demand on solar supply chain. Because the supply side was conservative to adjust the price quote, there was no serious price correction. However, since the demand side was expected the further price reduction, poly-silicon price remained the continuous mild downtrend this week.