German chemical group Wacker Chemie has posted the financial results for the second quarter of 2023 with its polysilicon sales dropping by 9.7%.
The company said the polysilicon sales in Q2 were €513 million (US$562 million), down from €568 million in Q2 2022. The decrease was primarily due to lower average prices for solar-grade polysilicon year-over-year and the reduced sales volume. By contrast, prices for semiconductor-grade polysilicon were higher in Q2 2023 than they were a year ago. Compared with Q1 2023 (€441 million), sales grew by 16%. This was due to significantly higher volumes compared with the previous quarter.
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EBITDA of the polysilicon business in Q2 was €156 million, decreasing from €214 million or by 27% year-on-year. Apart from prices and sales volume, persistently high costs for energy and silicon metal also affected the performance of the division. However, compared with the prior quarter (€98 million), EBITDA was up 59%.
“Despite a weak start to Q2, our solar business ended up recording higher volumes, but, at the same time, we are observing a fall in prices for solar-grade polysilicon in China. We are also investing in our polysilicon business, building a new production line at our Burghausen site for cleaning semiconductor-grade polysilicon,” said Christian Hartel, CEO of Wacker Chemie.
Across all business divisions, the company’s sales were €1.75 billion in Q2 2023, decreasing from €2.17 billion or by 19% in Q2 2022. EBITDA totalled €256 million in Q2 2023, down 59% year-over-year (€626 million). The decline was due to lower volumes and prices as well as lower utilisation rates for some plants.
Looking forward, the company expects group sales for 2023 to be between €6.5 billion and €6.8 billion, reducing from the previous guidance of €7 billion and €7.5 billion. Full-year EBITDA is expected to be between €800 million and €1.0 billion, down from €1.1 billion and €1.4 billion.
“The pace of global economic growth has slowed significantly in recent months and Wacker Chemie has not been immune to this, (but) in the reporting quarter we significantly boosted our investment spending on the global expansion of our capacity compared with the previous year,” Hartel said.