Despite another record-breaking year for global PV additions, driven in large part by an end-of-year spurt of demand, Wacker’s polysilicon division saw its fourth-quarter sales drop 32% to €255m ($335.8m).
“The decline in semiconductor and solar demand was stronger than we had expected, and caused Q4 figures to come in below our estimate,” says chief executive Rudolf Staudigl.
Wacker says many of its customers were busy clearing their bloated inventories, while many others simply walked away from the PV game altogether – lending credence to the notion that dozens of polysilicon producers are likely to disappear over the next few years.
Though
