Global solar PV inverter shipments grew 23% on 2016, reports GTM Research in its latest Global Solar PV Inverter Market Shares and Shipment Trends 2018 report. Revenues, meanwhile, increased by 11%.
Although the analysts have not provided concrete figures, based on 2016 shipments, which were a record 80 GWac, this would mean shipments grew to around 98.4 GWac in 2017.
IHS Markit, in comparison, forecasts that between 94 to 95 GWac were shipped last year. “China, India and Latin America were blowout years for inverter shipments,” according to Cormack Gilligan, Senior Solar Analyst at IHS Markit.
Shipments in Europe were found to have grown by 34%, continued GTM Research, which added, “This excludes Turkey and is significantly greater than the 8% increase in solar installations, implying that the solar growth should continue in 2018 as those shipments are deployed.”
Overall, displaying no change on 2016, Huawei, Sungrow, SMA and ABB topped the inverter shipment charts, said GTM Research. Dropping three places, however, TMEIC slid to number eight. See the table below for the top 10 inverter vendors by shipments, according to GTM Research.
The company also found that a total of 20 vendors shipped over 1 GW of product in 2017, versus 15 in 2016. Meanwhile, the top five comprised 62% of global shipments.
A first, three-phase string inverter shipments exceeded those of central inverters last year.
pv magazine has contacted GTM Research for more information.
In the April edition of pv magazine out now, managing editor, Ian Clover provides a round up of some of the latest trends in the solar PV inverter space, including higher power products.
Clover also discussed the six trends that will shape the inverter landscape in 2018, in January including: a continuing Chinese dominance; Indian opportunities; a hardening MLPE landscape; and component shortages.
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.
6 comments
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.