The company said that shipments expanded last year particularly in maturing markets outside of Germany, such as in Italy, France and Benelux. Over the year, it adds, nearly three out of five of its modules sold in Europe were distributed through the companys European value-added reseller (VAR) network.
Looking back at 2010, Vedat Gürgeli, vice president sales and marketing for Suntech Europe, commented: "Were excited to be the first module manufacturer to reach one gigawatt of annual sales in Europe; but were even more excited about our lasting partnerships with value-added resellers. Eight of the top ten German VARs are Suntech partners, and these long-term relationships have grown stronger as our partners have expanded into other European markets."
Just last month, IMS Research reported that Suntech increased its module shipments by 25 percent in the third quarter of 2010 over the previous quarter. Overall, the company heads the worldwide leader board in terms of volume of PV panels shipped.
Looking forward, Suntech has said it will continue to diversify its global sales footprint and downstream partnerships, particularly in North America, Australia, Thailand and Israel.
Jerry Stokes, Suntechs president for Europe, concluded: "Through our local offices, with strong customer support and technical service teams, we have made great strides into key developing markets, which have risen significantly as a share of overall shipments. Our growing local teams totaling more than 70 employees are supporting solar industry growth in emerging European markets such as Greece, the UK, and Bulgaria."
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.