The largest PV inverter manufacturer, SMA Solar Technology, beat it own sales forecast for 2009, while posting record sales of €934 million, a 37% increase over 2008 sales of €682 million. Sold inverter output reached 3.4GW in 2009. The company claimed it had gained 2 percentage points of market share last year, taking its global share to 40%. SMA’s ability to ramp production from 342MW in the first quarter of 2009 to 1,415MW in the fourth quarter, contributed to the market share gains.
SMA expects continued strong sales in 2010. It expects the German market will remain the biggest market but growth internationally is also expected to grow, boosting revenue tow between €1.1 and €1.3 billion for 2010. Market share is expected to remain above 40%, the company said.
However, SMA noted that it expects pricing pressures to continue in 2010. International competition in the inverter market, coupled to the expected digression of feed-in tariffs in Germany will lead to a slight decrease in EBIT-margins in 2010, which the company said would be down to between 20 and 23 %. The company posted a preliminary EBIT margin of approximately 24.4 % in 2009.
