Wellingborough, UK – 24th August 2011: PV inverter suppliers continued to suffer in Q2’11 with industry revenues falling by 1.3% year-on-year, following sharp price declines, according to IMS Research’s latest quarterly report. However it was not all bad news in Q2 and inverter shipments in fact grew sharply by more than 40% versus Q1 indicating that excess inventory is no longer blighting the industry and that demand may be more robust downstream in 2H’11.

According to IMS Research the market saw a strong recovery in Q2’11 taking shipments in the first half of the year close to 10 GW, however a very rapid fall in factory-gate prices of more than 20% led to a fall in industry revenues. Earlier this year, IMS Research predicted that full year inverter shipments would again well exceed 20 GW, but fast price erosion would result in revenues falling from 2010’s record high.

IMS Research’s quarterly PV Inverter Supply & Demand report which collects revenue and shipment data from more than 90% of the industry shows that pricing was a critical factor in Q2 and that further price declines are predicted in the second half of the year. “Average inverter prices fell rapidly in both Q1 and Q2 to under 0.20/W and although not matching PV modules’ decline, they’ve reduced by 20% compared to one year ago, though this is partly due to product mix change“, commented Ash Sharma, Senior Research Director for PV at IMS Research and co-author of the report.

IMS Research found that several factors caused this decline and it may even be possible for average prices to increase in coming quarters “Unlike PV modules, these price declines are not simply ‘like-for-like’ reductions and a number of other factors came into play. Of course customers were demanding price reductions from suppliers, but more important factors such as geographical shifts to lower priced regions, and also the change in product mix away from higher-priced string inverters to lower cost three-phase products also drove the price falls”, Sharma revealed.