Heraeus to grow sales in China

Company anticipates huge increase in use of products by domestic firms

Heraeus Photovoltaics, a leading supplier of metallization solutions in the photovoltaics industry, is planning to quadruple its global business in the next five years, with business from China accounting for a major chunk of the overall growth, said a top official.

"The total business size in five years will be four times more than today, and most of it is coming from China, so for China it is the same figure," Andreas Liebheit, president of Heraeus Photovoltaics, told China Daily.

According to Liebheit, the company is expecting 50 percent of its business to come from pastes, and the balance from non-paste technologies and solutions.

Currently, Heraeus Photovoltaics has more than 30 percent market share and nearly 95 percent of its entire business coming from pastes, he said.

"We want to enlarge our business step by step," said Liebheit, adding that the company needs to double its paste business as well as scale up non-paste business. Heraeus Photovoltaics also announced a new and expanded portfolio of products and services at the 2018 SNEC International Photovoltaic Power Generation and Smart Energy Exhibition & Conference that was held in Shanghai recently, marking its strategic expansion across the PV value chain.

Global installed PV capacity has surpassed 400 gigawatts by the end of 2017, among which about 102 GW were newly installed in 2017, surging about 40 percent year-on-year. China alone represents more than half of the newly installed PV capacity, according to latest research findings from Shenzhen-based Qianzhan Industry Research Institute. According to Liebheit, the east coast of the US used to be the center of the paste business for decades as it is used in the electronics business, but China is emerging as the center of PV business. In 2013, Heraeus Photovoltaics moved its global headquarters to Shanghai from the United States.

"China is by far the strongest market. Even now we see a little bit of trends for Southeast Asia, but that is from Chinese companies going to Southeast Asia. So you must be in China for this business," he said.

As huge as the Chinese market grows, the PV sector is about to experience an industry reshuffle that will see the elimination of those with overcapacity and limited competitiveness.

This is a natural process as the industry is growing and upgrading and the global PV market remains robust in general, said Shi Dinghuan, former councilor of the State Council was quoted as saying by Shanghai Securities News.

The expanding market is also bringing down the cost for solar energy, and will gradually make government subsidy no longer necessary, Shi added.

Liebheit admitted that it is impossible for an industry to maintain a growth rate of 30 percent for long, but he projected the sector to remain bullish.

In the past few years, Heraeus Photovoltaics increased its Chinese R&D team by 20 percent every year, and China business is becoming the "base business" of the company, he said.