TapTechNews August 21st news, recently there are market rumors that a major silicon wafer factory's Tianjin and Yixing bases may stop production, and the industry speculates that this rumor implies TCL Zhonghuan.
On August 21st, TCL Zhonghuan responded to Daily Economic News that currently no news of production stoppage has been received, the relevant bases are still in normal production and operation, and the company currently has no plan to stop production or reduce production lines.
TCL Zhonghuan's capacity layout in China mainly involves Tianjin, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Jiangsu and other places. In the past two years, due to the change in supply and demand structure, the photovoltaic industry has entered a period of in-depth adjustment, with product prices declining and backward production capacity accelerating to be cleared. TCL Zhonghuan chose to increase production against the trend. According to TCL Zhonghuan's annual report, by the end of 2023, the company's crystal capacity reached 183 GW, an increase of 31% compared to the beginning.
TapTechNews found out that TCL Zhonghuan achieved revenue of 9.933 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2024, a significant decrease of 43.62% year-on-year; it suffered a loss of 879 million yuan, turning from profit to loss. On August 2nd, TCL Zhonghuan announced the resignation of CEO Shen Haoping, citing due to work needs and personal energy considerations, and TCL boss Li Dongsheng temporarily took over the CEO responsibility and will complete the relevant process of appointing a new CEO according to relevant regulations.
Some sources disclosed that there are already signs of turmoil inside Zhonghuan, brewing a reshuffle of middle and senior management personnel, and changing the previous posture of full-capacity production. Internal personnel of TCL Zhonghuan also said that there are indeed some changes in the start of work, the operating rate has decreased by 5% to 10% compared to before, but it is an operation under normal production scheduling adjustment. Another person in the photovoltaic industry believes that the reason for Shen Haoping's departure may be that the market judgment was wrong in the first and second quarters of this year, and the early arrangement of aggressive full-load production in Zhonghuan resulted in billions of silicon wafers in inventory, and at the same time, the significant price fluctuations in the silicon wafer market also caused huge loss due to price decline.