Market Overview: Today, the domestic DMC market prices remained stable, with an average price of 14400 yuan/ton in the Chinese market, unchanged from the previous working day. At the beginning of this week, production enterprise quotations remained firm, and the operating load of some individual factories in the north significantly decreased, which to some extent alleviated the pressure of inventory growth. Downstream terminal demand follow-up is insufficient, and the downward transmission of costs still faces resistance. Most companies still focus on digesting previous inventory and adopt a cautious attitude towards high-level procurement, resulting in a relatively quiet atmosphere for new order transactions. On the raw material side, the market price of silicon metal continues to operate weakly and steadily, with an average price decrease of 50 yuan/ton. Supply side: The plan for individual factories to further reduce production continues to increase. Demand side: The terminal continues to be weak, and the purchasing willingness is not high.
On the evening of March 20th, silicon material leader Xiexin Technology released its 2024 annual performance forecast. Compared to the net profit of 2.5 billion yuan in 2023, the company is expected to lose 4.8 billion yuan last year. GCL Technology attributes its losses to a significant year-on-year decrease in the average selling price of polysilicon and silicon wafer products in 2024; Selling profits from subsidiaries and losses from selling equity in joint ventures; Impairment of equipment (mainly including crystal slicing equipment) and impairment losses on accounts receivable and other receivables.
GCL Technology also announced that executive directors Zhu Gongshan, Zhu Zhanjun, Sun Wei, Lan Tianshi, and Yang Wenzhong have voluntarily reduced their annual salaries. The total annual salary of all executive directors has been reduced to approximately 16.4 million yuan (2024) and 16.3 million yuan (2025), which is "one of the multiple measures taken to reduce expenses in the current challenging business environment". Pengpai News noticed that compared to the relatively high silicon material price of 188 million yuan in 2023, the reduction in executive director compensation this time exceeds 90%. In the announcement, GCL Technology also updated its latest business progress: in 2024, its four major bases' granular silicon technology processes will become more mature, and phased technological upgrades and process optimizations will be completed within the year, with significant cost control effects. The photovoltaic materials business will continue to reduce losses quarter on quarter from the second quarter onwards. In 2024, the prices of the photovoltaic industry chain will collectively decline. On the upstream end, the price of single crystal dense materials decreased from 65000 yuan/ton at the beginning of the year to 40000 yuan/ton at the end of the year, and the price of N-type granular silicon decreased from 60000 yuan/ton at the beginning of the year to 37000 yuan/ton at the end of the year. In early May last year, the price of silicon materials exceeded the cash cost of most enterprises.