An 18 percent year-on-year rise in global shipments will make the fourth quarter of 2012 the largest final quarter ever recorded. However, the report predicts far more modest revenue growth due to increasing price pressure for PV inverters.
IMS Research’s analysis of shipment data collected from leading suppliers found that the first half of 2012 began strongly with over 16 GW of global shipments. However, despite strong shipments, the average price of PV inverters had fallen by almost 20 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2012.
“Following huge amounts of price pressure on other PV components such as modules, PV inverter prices have also come under fire,” explained Cormac Gilligan, PV market analyst at IMS Research. “Highly competitive market conditions, falling incentives and weakening demand in key markets has resulted in prices declining by an average of 5 percent per quarter for the last year.”
Looking further forward, in 2013, in shipment terms, China is forecast to surpass Germany as the largest market for PV inverters as FiT amendments take full effect on the German market and China continues to rapidly deploy utility scale systems. The USA is predicted to become the third biggest market for PV inverters highlighting the global shift from the mature European markets to the fast growing Americas and Asia regions.