Flex, the parent company of NEXTracker, noted in its 2016 annual report dated March 31, that “Gross margins improved 70 basis points in fiscal year 2016 compared to that of fiscal year 2015 due to proportionate increased share of our total revenue attributable to our HRS and IEI segments coupled with their increased profitability primarily driven by our acquisitions of Mirror Controls International and NEXTracker Inc.”
In the United States — the largest market for PV tracker products globally — Soltec, GameChange Solar, and Sunlink were the winners in terms of growth in the market outside of the big two (NEXTracker and Array Technologies).
Convert Italia —ranked fourth — and Arctech — ranked fifth — have risen into the top five, finding success in emerging tracker markets outside of the United States in Latin America, the EMEA region, and India.
Vertically integrated suppliers First Solar —ranked third — and SunPower — ranked sixth — notably lost market share in 2016. This has coincided with First Solar’s announcement to downsize its EPC business and to exit the structures market in 2016.
Soltec ranked seventh, Clavijo ranked eighth, Sun Action ranked ninth, and GameChange ranked tenth globally in the comparison.
Of the top 10 suppliers, distributed systems accounted for two thirds of shipped products, while one third was accounted for by centralized solutions, with NEXTracker and Array Technologies leading each product category respectively.
Leading tracker suppliers found success by continuing to dominate in the US market, but with the market slowing down in 2017, developing international markets for trackers will be key for maintaining growth, along with developing niche solutions for small-scale applications and sites with less than ideal land types (uneven terrain, obstructions, etc.).
For international growth, look to Latin American markets such as Brazil and Mexico, EMEA markets such as Turkey and Jordan, and Asian markets such as India and Australia.
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.