The overall price of solar module continues its downward trend with limited scope. As the market is still struggling with oversupply, limited trade volumes have been seen after the holiday season in Europe and America as companies are still planning the year ahead at the start of 2017, resulting in a minor price decline in EU and US. Meanwhile, the price in Japan, India, and China remained firm this week due to relatively decent demand in the region. Furthermore, after the sharp decline last quarter, the overall price adjustment has slowed down due to weak dollar and slowing price competition in the global market, but the pressure resulting from oversupply still exists. Thus, the overall solar module prices drop slightly this week.

The overall price of solar module continues its downward trend with limited scope. As the market is still struggling with oversupply, limited trade volumes have been seen after the holiday season in Europe and America as companies are still planning the year ahead at the start of 2017, resulting in a minor price decline in EU and US. Meanwhile, the price in Japan, India, and China remained firm this week due to relatively decent demand in the region. Furthermore, after the sharp decline last quarter, the overall price adjustment has slowed down due to weak dollar and slowing price competition in the global market, but the pressure resulting from oversupply still exists. Thus, the overall solar module prices drop slightly this week.

The prices of both multi-crystalline and mono-crystalline cell prices are still slightly pressured this week. Although the demand seems to remain solid, the strength of demand has been called into questions as most solar cell makers could not operate in full productions. It implies that the demand has yet to have obvious warm-up even as some solar cell makers anticipate for demand rebound before lunar New Year. Moreover, since oversupply nature and downstream price downtrend persist, multi-crystalline and mono-crystalline cell prices remain vulnerable to downward corrections consecutively. Nevertheless, due to upcoming Chinese New Year holidays, slightly restrained solar cell supply from Taiwanese, Chinese and Korean suppliers helps to limit the scope of solar cell price slump. In addition, since sliding solar cell prices and rather stable wafer prices have squeezed the margins of solar cell makers, there is not much of room for solar cell prices to drop either under current circumstances. As the result, both multi-crystalline and mono-crystalline solar cell prices decline limitedly this week.

Multi-crystalline wafer prices continue to decline mildly this week amid persistent downstream pressures. However, the drop has become more limited in contrast to previous weeks as supported by elevated polysilicon price, tempered downstream price slump and appreciation of RMB. On the other hand, mono-crystalline wafer increases slightly this week as mainly pushed up by the recent RMB appreciation. Because mono-crystalline wafer has consistently under supply in China and overseas, the tight supply situation has supported the prices to remain stable in previous weeks. Nevertheless, despite the supply shortage of mono-crystalline wafers, mono-crystalline wafer price is unable to ascend as inhibited by the long streak of losses in the downstream sectors. However, the recent appreciation of RMB has helped to increase mono-crystalline wafer prices in dollar term. Furthermore, although overall mono-crystalline wafer prices remain stable in RMB term, some 2nd tier mono-crystalline wafer suppliers hike prices upwards successfully. As the result, multi-crystalline wafer remain slightly pressured, but mono-crystalline wafer prices increase mildly with strengthen RMB and persistent supply shortage.

Polysilicon prices continue to increase marginally this week despite the price drop in downstream sectors. In the Chinese market, as the demand for polysilicon remains strong, the supply shortage gives the manufacturers the opportunity to drive up the price, but only to a limited extent because the price is already reaching the saturation points. But, as RMB strengthens recently, polysilicon prices in China has more obvious price hike in dollar term this week. On the other hand, polysilicon in market outside of China also increases slightly this week following the price trend in the Chinese market. With the closing of the accounting process of financial year 2016, the inventory pressure forcing listed producers to lessen stock levels by is largely relieved. Hence, no dumping activities have been observed, and the demand in overseas market is also quite solid since most wafer makers possess high utilization rates. As the result, the price of polysilicon rises in the market outside of China as mainly contributed by the influence from the Chinese market.