SMA Solar Technology AG had a difficult first half of 2022. The persistent supply difficulties with electronic components have affected the development of the company’s sales and earnings, as seen in its latest figures released on Thursday.
In the first half of the year, SMA sold PV inverters with a total power of around 5.8 GW – about one gigawatt less than in the first half of 2021. Sales fell from €488.3 million to €471.9 million year-on-year.
In particular, sales in the Home Solutions segment were lower because the high demand could not be met due to the shortage of materials. In the Commercial & Industrial Solutions and Large Scale Project Solutions segments, the higher prices ensured that sales remained at the previous year's level despite lower sales.
SMA's consolidated earnings were negative in the first half of the year. After a profit of €13.3 million in the same period last year, this time there was a loss of €10.6 million.
Despite the losses, the SMA Managing Board confirmed the March forecast for the 2022 fiscal year. The company expects sales of between €900 million and €1 billion and before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of between €10 million and €60 million. In the first half of 2022, EBITDA was €16 million.
In the meantime, SMA is issuing “a series of measures to improve its long-term ability to deliver,” said SMA Chief Executive Officer Jürgen Reinert. This includes the construction of a new gigawatt factory at the Kassel site, which is intended to double the company’s production capacity by 2024 in response to the growing demand for PV inverters and storage solutions.
“Our order intake is developing positively. But the continued tight delivery situation is having a significant toll on the development of sales and earnings,” said Reinert, adding, “As in numerous other industries, the difficulties relating to the supply of electronic components are also affecting European inverter manufacturers, illustrating once again the dependency of global supply chains on the Asian markets. We are expecting a significant improvement of the overall situation and profitable sales growth from 2023 onwards.”
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.