Chinese module manufacturer JinkoSolar shipped 15.9GW of modules in the second quarter of this year, a 34.4% year-on-year decline, and announced that Wei ‘Dimi’ Du has replaced founder Xiande Li as CEO.
The company’s latest module shipments follow a poor performance in sales in the first quarter of the year, in which JinkoSolar sold 13.7GW of modules, the lowest quarterly sales figure since the first quarter of 2023.
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These low sales figures followed a decline in module prices across the industry, and contributed to revenue of just RMB12.36 billion (US$1.84 billion) in the second quarter of this year, a 0.9% decline from the US$1.82 billion reported in the first quarter of the year.
The company’s decline in module sales is shown in the graph below; the first half of this year marks the lowest half-year total module sales reported since the second half of 2022.
JinkoSolar also announced today that founder and former CEO Xiande Li had resigned from the company, effective immediately, and that Du would take over the position. Li will continue to serve as company chairman and chair of the compensation committee, and JinkoSolar pointed out that Li’s resignation “was not due to any disagreement with the company”, and that it does not expect this change to have “any material impact” on its operations.
“This transition is part of a carefully planned succession process,” said Li. “As we enter the next phase of development, this arrangement allows me to focus on our long-term strategy, board governance and major strategic decisions, while our new CEO will lead management in overseeing day‑to‑day operations, strategic execution and capital allocation at the group level.”
Li’s resignation follows that of Chen Kangping, who stepped down as vice chairman, director and member of the Strategy and Sustainability Committee last month. His term was set to expire on 25 December 2026, and his early resignation was attributed to personal reasons.
Du says module sales remain ‘at the forefront of industry’
Du said that the company’s 29.6GW of sales in the first six months of the year are “at the forefront of industry”, and this is reflected in poor sales figures across the Chinese solar sector as a whole, not just for JinkoSolar in particular.
For instance, in the first half of the year, leading Chinese PV companies saw a combined deficit of over US$1.49 billion, after years of high production and collapsing module prices, which have led to parallel crises of severe module overproduction and low revenues for manufacturers. This has affected companies throughout the supply chain, such as Daqo New Energy, which posted a dramatic 88.3% quarter-on-quarter decline in polysilicon sales in the first quarter of this year.
PV Tech Premium heard from JA Solar leadership during its financial results that the second half of this year will be something of an inflection point for the global solar industry, due to these economic challenges. However, JA Solar management said at the time that the rapid expansion of the battery energy storage system (BESS) sector could help bolster demand for solar modules, to the benefit of the industry.
“Supply and demand across the PV industry remain dynamic and with policy shifts in both domestic and overseas markets, prices along the supply chain and industry profitability continued to be under pressure,” said Du. Uncertainty on the global scale is particularly significant for JinkoSolar, which shipped 70% of its modules to overseas markets in the second quarter of the year, exposing it to policy disruptions overseas.
“The cost of ramping up production of our high-efficiency products remained elevated during the quarter and impacted our gross margin and bottom line when combined with the delivery of certain low-value orders,” added Du.
However, the quarter has not been without success for the company, which launched its Tiger Neo 5.0 range of tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) modules in June. JinkoSolar also posted a year-on-year increase in gross profit of 2.5% and a gross profit margin of 4.2% in the second quarter of the year, up from 2.9% in the second quarter of 2025.
Looking ahead, JinkoSolar has revised down its guidance for the remainder of the year. The company now expects to ship between 60GW and 70GW of modules in 2026, down from a forecast of 75-85GW made in the first quarter of this year. This would be notably lower than the 86GW of modules that the company sold last year.
