Research: The PV inverter market is highly competitive and achieved remarkable results in 2017. How will it develop in 2018?

The CEO of McDonald's once said, "If we were in the beer and wine business, we would eventually own 100% of the food service market!"

This statement caused quite a stir. McDonald's is a large multinational restaurant chain that has been leading the catering industry for many years. It has ambition, strength, and bold words! However, it is still impossible to have 100% of the market share. When people mention McDonald's, they always think of fast food such as hamburgers, French fries, fried chicken, soda, ice cream, salads, and fruits.

Some categories do taste good, but when someone gives you a bottle of McDonald's branded wine or beer, would you be surprised?

This kind of surprise is a normal reaction. According to brand laws, when a brand expands, it is invisibly weakened. It is unrealistic to achieve 100% market share.

2. Survival of the fittest, elimination of the unfit

Looking back at the current domestic photovoltaic market, thanks to the strong outbreak of the ground-based power station market, Germany, the leader in the photovoltaic market, has been pushed down from its long-standing leadership position.

In the past few years, the share of ground-mounted power stations has increased year by year. Starting from 2016, the share of China's distributed power market increased significantly, and the proportion of ground-mounted power stations in the entire photovoltaic market began to decline.

According to statistics in 2017, 53.1 GW were added last year: 25.1 GW of large-scale ground photovoltaic power stations, 14.3 GW of distributed photovoltaics, 3.0 GW of centralized photovoltaic poverty alleviation, 2.2 GW of distributed photovoltaic poverty alleviation, and 5.5 GW of the leader program.

Distributed photovoltaic market is rising!

This is obvious to all! Since 2013, the domestic distributed market has had a "spark" and is now developing towards a "prairie fire" trend. Such a huge cake has made many companies that used to be engaged in large-scale inverter manufacturing begin to "transform" rapidly, or to be more precise, to expand their product lines, such as Sungrow Power Supply, Huawei, etc., and their products are shifting towards the distributed application market. They have launched a number of string inverters for the distributed market - with higher efficiency, better appearance, and more user-friendly functions.

The strong entry of these large enterprises has shocked the string inverter companies that have been deeply involved in the market. The already fiercely competitive string inverter market has become even more bloody.

We learned from many sources that inverter companies such as GoodWe, Growatt, Ginlong, SMA, Sofar New Energy, Sanjing Electric, INVT, and Easy Power all had good market shares and sales performance in 2017. It seems that these competitors have reached a harmonious space of mutual growth and coexistence.

It was not until the entry of Sunshine and Huawei that many companies became wary and industry media and others began to speculate.

Someone once said that several industry giants will officially launch string inverters in 2018, and the inverter industry will then be plunged into a bloody battle.

Some people even assert that when Huawei's price differs from the above brands by several hundred yuan, since there is not much price difference, users will be more inclined to choose familiar brands or brands they have heard of when making a choice, and a large number of inverter companies will inevitably die out.

Fighting is inevitable! The development of any industry will eventually follow the law of natural survival - the fittest survive and the unfit are eliminated. The situation of big fish eating small fish will always exist in the market.

3. Choose to stimulate demand

Most people have seen and drunk the two brands of beverages, Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Many people may not know that the two companies once went to court over the word "Coke". Unfortunately, Coca-Cola did not win the case, but instead allowed Pepsi, a new category, to gain a rapid market share. Of course, Coca-Cola's sales also grew rapidly due to the competition.

Just like at last year's annual meeting of Sungrow Power Supply, Cao Renxian, chairman of Sungrow Power Supply, first thanked Huawei. The existence of strong competitors has enabled Sungrow Power Supply to have its current market position and sales. Looking at the inverter companies mentioned above, they all have a certain accumulation in the market and a relatively wide market coverage. They all achieved good sales in 2017.

Many people wonder why companies can grow so fast despite such fierce competition.

The competition between Pepsi and Coca-Cola has aroused customers' strong interest in the word "Coke", resulting in an increase in the consumption of both products. In order to occupy the market, inverter companies have innovated on the product side and increased publicity on the brand side, so that customers have more choices in front of more brands.

It is choice that stimulates demand.

Therefore, even though the PV inverter market is undergoing a reshuffle, all companies still achieved good results in 2017. However, 2018 is different from 2017. With the entry of stronger inverter companies, competition will be more intense. Companies need to plan from many aspects, such as market channels, product innovation, and brand building. Of course, there is no need to worry too much. A dominant brand that occupies 50% of the market share is already online, so the remaining market share will still be given to those well-prepared companies.