Solar manufacturers SolarEdge and SMA have recently reported on financial results and reiterated their beliefs in better days ahead.
SMA – “Solid” First Half In A Challenging Market
Founded in 1981 in Germany, SMA is best known for its inverters, but has also branched out into energy storage and EV chargers. SMA inverters have been a popular solar inverter solution for Australian home solar installations, but the firm has been struggling amid increasing competition.
Reporting on the first half of 2024, SMA said sales were lower than for the same period in 2023, reaching €759.3 million compared to €778.9 million.
The company has pointed its finger at:
- A global PV market developing “very inconsistently” this year.
- Continuing high inventory levels at distributors and installers relating to the Home and Commercial & Industrial sectors.
- Excess capacity from Chinese manufacturers putting further downward pressure on prices.
SMA also said electricity price reductions in some parts of the world were resulting in postponed investments.
While making significant sales and earnings gains in the Large Scale & Project Solutions segment, SMA says the delayed market recovery in the Home and C&I (Commercial & Industrial) segments has seen the firm expanding sales activities to other product groups and countries in recent weeks.
In June, SMA announced it was adjusting its revenue guidance for the fiscal year 2024 downwards from €1.95 billion to €2.22 billion, to between €1.55 billion and €1.7 billion. There has been no subsequent change to this guidance in the latest report.
Read more from SMA’s H1 report here.
SolarEdge “Encouraged” By Q2 Results
Israel-based SolarEdge Technologies, Inc. manufactures optimisers, inverters, battery storage and EV chargers, and their products have also been popular in Australia.
The company has announced its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2024, with the firm reporting revenues of USD $265.4 million. While this was up 30% from $204.4 million in the previous quarter, it was down a whopping 73% from $991.3 million in the same quarter last year.
Commenting on the results, SolarEdge Chief Executive Office Zvi Lando said:
“While we expect undershipping to continue in the third quarter, we believe the momentum in our underlying business and the actions we are taking to gain market share and address new growth segments will enable a return to higher revenue levels once inventories are cleared in the first half of 2025.”
Looking ahead, SolarEdge provided guidance for the third quarter ending September 30, 2024, forecasting revenues to be within the range of $260 million to $290 million.
Read more from SolarEdge’s Q2 report here
Both SolarEdge and SMA have been doing it tough, but they aren’t certainly aren’t alone. The situation isn’t confined to inverters, with solar panel prices being pummeled too. Many Chinese manufacturers are feeling the pinch as well from cut-throat competition between each other. In a race to the bottom, you might win – but the cost may be very high.
Still, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Lower solar power system prices are a win for the end-consumer; making now a great time to go solar in Australia.
About Michael Bloch
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Just looked at Solar Edge report in detail……seems to me that if I understood the report correctly they lost $44M USD for the reported quarter and have cash reserves that allow a continued loss of that size for a max of 1 year.
If I was looking to buy a battery that lasted and had manufacturers support for 10+ years then those extra numbers would make me a bit nervous to pay a name brand premium when that premium might not exist for much longer…..
I seem to recall Ronald B had a blogg post some time ago where he suggested that Optimisers and microinverters demand were potentially not much longer at the sustained levels of the time due to panel manufacturing changes that reduced the impact of shading etc on string outputs…. (maxion???? I think) Looking at SE and emphases Gross revenue results suggests he may well have been spot on….
Andy
Given this report, loss and reported margins remaining suggesting 1 year of business security? Are you continuing to recommend and list this product as to me it seems a questionable investment concern around their ability to honour warranty, supply and develop and distribute product.
Your stance on the Maxeon/Sunpower brand dictates you remove these from your platform , you shouldn’t recommend them to grandma unless you want grandma to be a solar orphan with no warranty support as writing is on the wall here.