Three of Taiwan’s merchant solar cell and module producers, Gintech Energy Corp, Neo Solar Power (NSP) and SolarTech Energy have separately announced the suspension of trading of their stocks on the Taiwan Stock Exchange beginning on October 16. 

The move, ahead of next weeks regional solar trade show PV Taiwan held in Taipei could be related to a potential merger of the companies, which have all been impacted by US anti-dumping duties and reliance on Chinese module producers for a large part of their customer base that is increasingly relying on domestic merchant cell producers. 

Consolidation of PV manufacturers in Taiwan is nothing new and a previous round, due to overcapacity and declining ASP’s echo’s challenges faced across the supply chain in Taiwan since the middle of 2016, which PV Tech has extensively covered. 

Recently in September, many of Taiwan’s merchant producers experienced strong sales that have been recovering through much of 2017. However, sales remain significantly below levels reached in the first half of 2016.

Based on revenue in 2017, Gintech is the second largest merchant manufacturer in Taiwan, having reported preliminary unaudited third quarter 2017 revenue of around NT$ 3,800 million (US$125.15 million), compared to NT$ 3,179 million in the previous quarter.

Third ranked producer NSP reported preliminary unaudited third quarter 2017 revenue of around NT$ 2,467 million (US$81.25 million), up from around NT$ 2,217 million in the previous quarter, while fourth ranked SolarTech reported revenue in the last quarter of around NT$1,774 million (US$58.42 million), compared to NT$ 1,800 million in the second quarter of 2017.

The largest producer, Motech Industries did not file a suspension notice with TSE. Motech’s third quarter 2017 revenue reached around NT$ 6,268 million, (US$206.4 million) compared to NT$ 5,596 million.