14.6 billion yuan is used for wealth management. Sungrow Power Supply, with 30 billion yuan in hand, still plans to raise funds in Hong Kong for expansion.
In the first quarter of 2026, against the backdrop of a significant increase in the shipment volume of energy storage batteries, Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd., a leading enterprise in the industry, presented a performance report with a decline in both revenue and profit, which greatly surprised many investors.
Before the explosion of the energy storage business, the vast majority of Sungrow's revenue came from the photovoltaic industry, and the company was also regarded by investors as a photovoltaic enterprise. However, its market value had long been lower than that of LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd., ranking second in the photovoltaic industry.
However, with the explosion of the energy storage business, Sungrow's stock price has continued to rise sharply, and the company's market value far exceeds that of photovoltaic enterprises such as LONGi Green Energy and JinkoSolar Holding Co., Ltd. Cao Renxian, the actual controller of the company, has also become the richest person in the photovoltaic industry, with a stock market value of over 100 billion yuan.
Due to the less - than - ideal performance in the first quarter, Sungrow's recent stock price trend has also lagged behind other energy storage battery enterprises. Against this background, Sungrow plans to raise funds in Hong Kong to further expand its overseas energy storage and inverter production capacity. With the support of the capital market, can Sungrow reverse the operating downturn in the first quarter and promote the recovery of the enterprise's performance in the future?
The growth of energy storage battery sales is far lower than the industry growth rate, and both revenue and profit decline
Driven by AI, the global demand for computing power has exploded significantly, and the end of computing power lies in electricity, especially the power generation of new energy sources such as wind and photovoltaic power.
Relevant national government agencies require that since 2026, the proportion of green power consumption of newly built data centers at national hub nodes must be no less than 80%. Green certificates are the only accounting vouchers, and projects that fail to meet the standards will not be approved or connected to the power grid.
Both photovoltaic power generation and wind power generation are intermittent and volatile, affected by factors such as weather and time, and cannot provide continuous and stable power supply. However, computing power centers have extremely high requirements for the stability of power supply. Any power outage or voltage fluctuation may lead to data loss and business interruption, causing huge losses.
Therefore, to solve this problem, data centers usually need to be equipped with energy storage systems to release the stored electrical energy when the power supply is insufficient, fill the power supply gap, and ensure the 7×24 - hour uninterrupted operation of the computing power center.
Against this background, the global shipment volume of energy storage batteries increased significantly in the first quarter of 2026. According to the global energy storage battery market data released by multiple institutions, the global shipment volume of energy storage batteries in the first quarter of 2026 was approximately 216 GWh, a year - on - year increase of 117%.
As a leading global enterprise in energy storage batteries, against the background of a significant increase in the industry's energy storage battery shipment volume, Sungrow's energy storage battery shipment volume decreased instead of increasing.
According to the research report data disclosed by Soochow Securities, Sungrow's energy storage battery shipment volume in the first quarter of 2026 was 11.4 GWh, and the shipment volume in the first quarter of 2025 was 12 GWh, a year - on - year decrease of 5.26%.
Against the background of the decline in the energy storage battery shipment volume, Sungrow's revenue from energy storage batteries also declined. The research report disclosed by Soochow Securities shows that the company's energy storage business achieved a revenue of 8.7 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2026, a year - on - year decline of 10% - 15%.
Regarding the decline in the company's energy storage battery shipment volume, Sungrow explained that a large - scale energy storage battery project in Saudi Arabia recognized revenue of about 4 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2025. If the impact of this factor is excluded, the company's energy storage battery shipment volume actually increased by 60%, but this growth rate is still lower than the industry average growth rate.
In contrast, according to the data disclosed by multiple research institutions, the single - quarter shipment volume of energy storage batteries of CATL, a leading domestic energy storage battery enterprise, was in the range of 50 - 55 GWh, a year - on - year increase of about 130%.
In addition, according to the research report data of Soochow Securities, Sungrow's gross profit margin of the energy storage business also declined. In the first quarter of 2026, the company's gross profit margin of the energy storage business was approximately 30%, a year - on - year decrease of 10%.
Affected by the decline in the energy storage business revenue and gross profit margin, Sungrow's operating revenue and net profit attributable to the parent company both declined in the first quarter of 2026.
The data shows that in the first quarter of 2026, Sungrow achieved an operating revenue of 15.561 billion yuan, a year - on - year decrease of 18.26%, and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 2.291 billion yuan, a year - on - year decrease of 40.12%.
It is worth noting that in the first quarter of 2026, while the price of lithium carbonate was rising, the price of Sungrow's energy storage batteries declined. This also means that the competition in the energy storage battery markets in Europe, the Middle East and other regions where Sungrow focuses its layout is more intense. Whether the gross profit margin of Sungrow's energy storage business will continue to decline in the future is worthy of attention.
14.6 billion yuan is used for financial management. With 30 billion yuan in hand, it still plans to raise funds in Hong Kong for capacity expansion
Against the background of the continuous boom in the energy storage business, Sungrow plans to list in Hong Kong to raise funds, build overseas production bases, and expand the production capacity of photovoltaic inverters and energy storage business.
It is reported that this time, Sungrow plans to build a 22.5 GWh energy storage system and a 20 GW inverter production capacity in Poland. In addition, the company plans to build a 10 GWh energy storage system production capacity in Egypt.
As of the end of 2025, Sungrow's designed production capacity of photovoltaic inverters in China was 200.8 GW, and the production capacity of energy storage systems was 49.8 GWh. In addition, the company also had photovoltaic inverter production capacities of 41 GW and 9 GW in Thailand and India respectively.
Due to the strong demand for energy storage and the continuous increase in photovoltaic installation volume, the utilization rate of Sungrow's photovoltaic inverter and energy storage battery production capacity has always been relatively high. Just from the perspective of actual use, the company does have the need for capacity expansion.
One of Sungrow's production bases is in Poland in Europe, and the other is in Egypt in the Middle East. Building production bases in Poland and Egypt can enable the company to better carry out business in Europe and the Middle East and save transportation costs.
Picture / Sungrow's official website
From the company's own perspective, against the background of the continuous expansion of overseas business, Sungrow needs to expand its overseas production capacity. However, from the industry perspective, since major energy storage battery enterprises are all expanding production overseas, the gross profit margin of overseas energy storage batteries has been continuously declining.
For example, CATL, the world's largest lithium - battery manufacturer, has put into production a 14 GWh lithium - battery production capacity in Berlin, Germany, which can produce both power batteries and energy storage batteries.
Currently, CATL has planned an annual production capacity of 100 GWh in Hungary, which is expected to be put into production in 2026, mainly serving the European market, and part of the production capacity can be adapted to energy storage batteries. In addition, CATL has also planned a large amount of lithium - battery production capacity in Spain, Indonesia, Thailand and other places.
Against this background, Sungrow's continued production expansion overseas will undoubtedly increase the supply of overseas production capacity. If the production capacity is too large, whether the energy storage batteries will fall into over - capacity like photovoltaic modules in the future remains to be seen. Although there are concerns about over - capacity in the industry, the company still plans to raise funds in Hong Kong for capacity expansion.
It is worth noting that as of March 31, 2026, Sungrow had up to 30.04 billion yuan in cash on hand, and also had 3.869 billion yuan in trading financial assets in the same period. In contrast, the company's total interest - bearing liabilities in the same period were 6.741 billion yuan.
In addition, thanks to continuous profitability, Sungrow's operating cash flow is extremely strong. From 2023 to 2025, the company's operating cash flow had net inflows of 6.982 billion yuan, 12.07 billion yuan, and 16.92 billion yuan respectively, with a cumulative net inflow of nearly 36 billion yuan in three years.
Due to the abundant cash on hand and strong operating cash flow, on March 31, 2026, Sungrow announced that it planned to use no more than 14.6 billion yuan to purchase low - risk, highly liquid and principal - protected financial products. Just from the perspective of funds, the necessity for Sungrow to raise funds in Hong Kong is not great.
The original intention of the capital market is to solve the financial problems of enterprises. However, if leading enterprises take advantage of the financing convenience of the capital market and expand production crazily, resulting in over - capacity in the industry later, it will not be worth the loss.
Betting on the AIDC power supply business, the actual controller becomes the richest person in the photovoltaic industry after the stock price soars
As a leading domestic enterprise in both photovoltaic inverters and energy storage batteries, in addition to continuously expanding the revenue of inverters and energy storage batteries, Sungrow is deploying the AIDC power supply business, which has been very popular in the past two years.
In 2025, Sungrow specially registered and established a wholly - owned subsidiary, Hefei Sungrow Source Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd., with a registered capital of 100 million yuan, to specifically carry out the AIDC power supply business and established an independent AIDC business group, officially entering the AIDC power supply track.
Against the background of the continuous explosion of AI, the sales volume of AI servers has increased significantly. As a major power consumer, ordinary power supplies are difficult to meet the stable power supply needs of AI servers. Against this background, the market scale of dedicated power supplies has increased significantly.
In 2024, the global market scale of AI server power supplies was 2.846 billion US dollars. By 2031, the global market scale of AI server power supplies is expected to grow to 60.81 billion US dollars, with a compound annual growth rate of 54.87% from 2024 to 2031.
As a domestic supplier of photovoltaic inverters and energy storage converters, the AIDC power supply, especially the 800V high - voltage direct - current HVDC architecture promoted by NVIDIA, has the same underlying technology as photovoltaic inverters and energy storage converters at the technical level.
In addition, Sungrow also has a large number of self - built photovoltaic power station businesses. If it deploys the AIDC power supply business, Sungrow can also form a business closed - loop of "photovoltaic power generation + energy storage power supply + AIDC power supply". According to the plan, Sungrow plans to achieve the implementation and small - scale delivery of AIDC power supplies in 2026.
Picture / Sungrow's official website
As one of the industries highly concerned by the capital market, the capital market has a very high degree of attention to AIDC power supply enterprises. For example, the stock price of Zhongheng Electric Co., Ltd., a leading domestic AIDC power supply enterprise, has increased by more than 400% since the beginning of 2025, and the stock price of Flex Ltd., a leading US AIDC power supply enterprise, has increased by more than 200%.
Since Sungrow announced the deployment of the AIDC power supply business in June 2025, the company's stock price has continued to rise sharply. At the beginning of June 2025, Sungrow's stock price was only about 60 yuan per share. By November 2025, the company's stock price once rose to more than 208 yuan per share. Although the stock price has declined recently, it is still around 165 yuan per share.
Although the sharp rise in the company's stock price is driven by the increase in the shipment volume of energy storage batteries and the continuous rise in performance, it is undeniable that embracing the AIDC power supply has also attracted more investors' attention to Sungrow.
Thanks to the continuous rise in the stock price, Sungrow's market value has continued to increase. As of May 21, the company's market value was as high as 342.9 billion yuan, and Cao Renxian, the actual controller of the company, has seen a significant increase in his net worth.
As of March 31, 2026, Cao Renxian held 631 million shares of Sungrow, accounting for 30.46% of the company's shares. Calculated based on Sungrow's current stock price, Cao Renxian's stock market value exceeds 102.8 billion yuan.
