Results in Yingli’s latest reports demonstrate that they have unobtrusively but steadily gained market share based on outstanding performance in a number of key parameters. Yingli, we believe, will achieve revenue growth from $1095 million in 2008 to just over $2000 million in 2012 (a CAGR approaching 23%) as shown in the chart below.

Yingli initiated internal supply of much its polysilicon requirements when it kicked off 3000 MT facility in its Fine Silicon division, and it has reduced silicon usage to an industry-leading 5.82 g/W. Yingli also now has achieved over 19% cell efficiency on its PANDA lines from which are set to manufacture 300 MW of mono-C modules and 100 MW of multi-C modules by the end of 2011. In fact, Yingli indicated expectations of shipping 60 MW of PANDA products by the end of this year. Another primary indicator of excellent performance is processing cost, and, as shown in the chart below, Yingli will likely, in our estimation, average $0.74/W in 2010 and $0.68/W in 2011. These estimations are 5-10% lower than cost/W of other competitive low-cost, Chinese module manufacturers.

As a result of this combination of low cost/W and increased sales of high-efficiency PANDA product along with other competitive advances mentioned above, we forecast that Yingli will gain market share as shown below. Starting with a modest market share of only 4.9% in 2008, we expect Yingli to earn 11.2% market share in 2011 as a result of its precedent-setting accomplishments.

David Cavanaugh is a senior analyst at clean tech research and consulting firm Pike Research