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The Chinese industry is dominating the solar sector by edging out Western and other Asian companies through sheer size and lower costs. It has decimated the whole competition outside of China except a couple of hold outs which are also in severe distress. While solar wafer to panel manufacturing is now dominated by Chinese companies with over 70-80% marketshare, other segments are also seeing an influx of major Chinese makers. Solar inverters still have large foreign companies which have managed to sustain a decent marketshare in non-Chinese markets, however the top companies are now Chinese. Earlier leaders like SMA Solar are now a shadow of their former selves. Western companies are now only dominant in high technology areas such as the production of capital equipment for other solar companies.
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Now, silver paste production for solar cells is also seeing an onslaught from Chinese upstarts such as DK Electronic Material, iSilver Materials, Environmental Natural Chemicals (Jiangsu) and Taiwan-based Exemt. This industry has been historically led by foreign companies such as Germany Hareus, Du Pont and Samsung SDI. They are the main suppliers of this crucial component to the makers of solar cells in Taiwan and China. However, a recent supply chain disruption allowed the small Chinese companies to make a rapid entry into the segment by supplying the Chinese solar manufacturing giants by selling at much lower costs.
The traditional Chinese strategy for dumping products at super low costs is being employed by the companies to win marketshare from the global leaders. The Chinese solar panel makers which are under huge pressure from crashing module prices are also using business processes to lower their raw material procurement costs. Some first-tier China-based solar cell makers have adopted an open-bid process to procure PV silver paste since the third quarter and this has benefited newcomers due to their lower prices.