The spot price of polysilicon continued to demonstrate significant falls last week (October 10-14), dropping to US$36/kg. Compared to the price in September, the spot price for polysilicon last week showed a fall of US$7/kg, according to Chihheng Liang, analyst at Digitimes Research.

The production cost of polysilicon for many China-based small- and medium-size firms is around US$47/kg. With the sub US$40/kg price level, it is likely that many of these firms have begun to reduce or halt production, added Liang.

The prices across the entire supply chain continued to fall. The segment that showed the second largest price fall was solar wafers with the 125 mono falling by US$0.10/pc to US$1.07/pc last week. The 156 mono and 156 multi both showed price decreases and arrived at US$2.05/pc and US$1.60/pc respectively.

The prices quoted in Taiwan for 156 mono has been US$2.00-2.22/pc and US$1.60-1.63/pc for 156 multi.

The backlog problem continues to plague the solar industry, pushing prices downward. Compared with the third quarter, the challenges for the solar industry in the fourth quarter are likely to be more difficult to handle, stated Liang.