SMA Solar Technology AG continues its dominance in the solar inverter sector; posting impressive gains during the first quarter of this year.
SMA outperformed its Q1 guidance, selling solar inverters with a total output capacity of 1.9 gigawatts – a 90% increase over the first quarter of last year.
The sales generated €405 million for the company; a substantial jump from Q1 2011 when its inverter sales reached €255.9 million.
“The strong demand for Sunny Boy inverters for PV rooftop systems in Europe during the first quarter reflects catch-up effects resulting from commercial commissioning in the fourth quarter of 2011 as well as pull-forward effects resulting from the discussion of additional feed-in-tariff reductions,” says Pierre-Pascal Urbon, Speaker of the Managing Board and Chief Financial Officer for SMA.
SMA says its gross foreign sales jumped by approximately 50% compared with the same period last year; with important markets being the U. S., Belgium, the United Kingdom, and France. 61.2% of SMA solar inverters produced went to foreign markets, including Australia, in Q1.
The company’s Managing Board anticipates falling demand in many European markets and says it is too early to predict whether the photovoltaic markets in America and Asia can compensate for this slowdown.
The SMA Group generated sales of €1.7 billion in 2011, the company’s second best year ever.
Globally, the company sold inverters with a total combined capacity of 7.6 gigawatts last year; a market share of around 33 percent according to SMA, which based this claim on newly installed global capacity in 2011 of 23 gigawatts.
SMA now employs more than 5,500 people around the world and has a presence in 19 countries on 4 continents.
SMA solar inverters are a popular choice for Australian home solar power installations. Featuring high efficiency, solid reliability and user-friendly operation, SMA inverters help ensure a faster payback and better efficiency from a solar panel array.
The inverter is a critical component in a solar panel system, but one often overlooked by people buying a system package. As is the case with solar panels, not all solar inverters are equal.
