Jinko Solar, China dominate module shipment totals again in 2019

Jinko shipped 14.2 GW of modules in 2019, up 33% from the previous year, the high mark in another year dominated by Chinese manufacturers.

February 12, 2020 Tim Sylvia

Image: JinkoSolar

With an impressive year-over year module shipment growth of nearly 3 GW, Jinko Solar has defended its position as the top company for solar photovoltaic module shipments again in 2019.

Jinko shipped 14.2 GW of modules in 2019, compared to 11.4 in 2018 for an overall growth of 25%. For context, that growth factor is equivalent to the entire capacity of modules that First Solar shipped in 2018, when First Solar shipped the 11th most modules of any company.

Outside of Jinko, the rest of the top-seven remained unchanged from 2018, with Chinese manufacturers dominating the market. The one exception comes from South Korea’s Hanwha Q CELLS, which shipped 7.3 GW of modules, good for 6th place and a 33% increase from 2018. Chinese manufacturers were so dominant, in fact, that of the 80.3GW shipped by the top-10 companies, 67.5 GW were shipped by Chinese manufacturers, or 84% for anybody keeping score at home.

To further illustrate how dominant Chinese companies were in 2019, if all of the non-Chinese manufacturers were removed from this list (all two of them), the total capacity of modules shipped would still be greater than the entire top-10 from 2018, which was 63GW.

The lone American manufacturer on the list is Arizona’s First Solar. Used earlier as a point of reference for Jinko’s growth, the company saw by far the largest percentile jump of any company on this list, increasing shipments by 104% in 2019 and jumping from 11th place in 2018 to 8th in 2019.

For those expecting to see changes in this list in 2020, Ankit Mathur, practice head of power at GlobalData, the company that released this ranking, said to expect more of the same:

“Chinese manufacturers will continue to dominate as the overall leader in solar installations in 2020 as newer emerging markets in SE Asia, Latin America and the Middle East mark their presence on the solar map as demand centers.”

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