SMA is not regretting its gamble on the Indian solar market back in 2010, as it is now the second biggest supplier of inverters to the country’s thriving PV market. The company is enjoying its position, and expects to grow within the market, although other major inverter suppliers are also eyeing expansion into the country.
The statistic coming from the German company today is that it supplied over 1 GW of solar to utility-scale projects in India in 2016. This activity was supported by the company’s sales and service subsidiary that it opened up in India in 2010, which enables the company to offer a whole range of inverters and various products onto the market.
“SMA has nearly doubled its total installed inverter base in India in 2016 alone,” commented John Susa, SMA Executive Vice President Sales Asia Pacific. “Among other projects, our central inverters have been used to build the largest solar power plant in India to date. This is a great success, as the Indian market is of strategic importance for SMA.”
With a 3.9 GW utility-scale PV market in 2016, SMA accounts for over one quarter. The company has said that it is strongly committed to the market, which seems to be a good business decision, as it is set to double in 2017. SMA plans to take advantage of this with significant resources and a local presence in the country.
“With a market share of 26% in 2016, we are strongly positioned in this growth market.,” continued Susa. “Our dedicated local sales and service team will continue to support our long-term Indian partners, leading developers and EPCs, with our high-quality product solutions and first-class services. There are significant performance and financial benefits to our customers in using SMA inverters in their large-scale PV power plants.”
Indian solar market analyst Mercom Capital recently released its Quarterly Market Update Dec 2016, which showed that Swiss power electronic company ABB is actually the biggest inverter supplier to the Indian market. SMA is number two in the ranking, with Astronergy in third.
What is notable is that the world’s two largest inverter suppliers in terms of volume, China’s Huawei and Sungrow, were not even in the top eight. With those two companies now aggressively pushing their global expansion strategies, they could look to demand a bigger slice of the Indian pie, which is set to be a gigantic 9 GW in 2017.
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