Why is it the first leading photovoltaic company to turn a profit in a single quarter?

Author | Yang Rui

Editor | Yang Rui

Typesetting and Proofreading | Gan Huiqi

On July 10th, Aiko Solar Co., Ltd. released its performance forecast for the first half of the year, expecting its net profit attributable to the parent company in the first half of 2025 to be between -170 million yuan and -280 million yuan, and the net profit in the second quarter to be between 20 million yuan and 130 million yuan.

This means that Aiko Solar Co., Ltd. has become the first company in the main photovoltaic industry chain to achieve a profit turnaround in a single quarter.

Behind this achievement is Aiko's tireless efforts over the past three years to build a value ecosystem and successfully blaze a differentiated path in the homogeneous competition landscape.

Deeply cultivating high-value overseas markets has become the "key move" for Aiko Solar Co., Ltd. to achieve a profit turnaround first and get out of the cycle quagmire.

"Aiko has been rated as a 'Top PV Brand' in several major European markets, demonstrating its solid market position and strong reputation among partners such as installers. According to in-depth research data from EUPD Research, Aiko has performed excellently in key indicators such as product quality, brand awareness, and customer satisfaction, and is setting a new benchmark for product performance in the European and even global PV markets." Markus A.W. Hoehner, CEO of EUPD Research, once said.

As a leading enterprise in photovoltaic BC technology, ABC modules are Aiko Solar Co., Ltd.'s flagship products.

It is understood that the selling price of ABC black hole double-glass modules in the European household market can be about 50% higher than that of TOPCon competitors of the same model. In May this year, Aiko Solar Co., Ltd. signed a cooperation agreement for a 1GW centralized project and a 1GW cooperation project for the third-generation "full-screen" ABC modules with overseas customers at the Intersolar Europe 2025.

Currently, the market share of Aiko's ABC modules in the distributed markets of Switzerland and the UK has exceeded 40%, and the market share in distributed scenarios in countries such as Germany, Italy, and Spain has reached over 20%. It has also won the "Top Brand PV 2025" certification issued by the authoritative institution EUPD Research.

According to Aiko Solar Co., Ltd.'s 2024 annual report, its export revenue was approximately 4.778 billion yuan, accounting for about 43.49% of its operating income; its domestic sales revenue was approximately 6.208 billion yuan, accounting for about 56.51% of its operating income.

"The company has accurately segmented value markets and value scenarios, optimized its product structure, and achieved strong production and sales of ABC modules. By deeply cultivating high-value markets and high-value scenarios in Europe, Australia, Japan, etc., the proportion of overseas sales has increased significantly, and the overall gross profit margin has continued to improve." Aiko Solar Co., Ltd. said in an announcement.

In addition, Aiko Solar Co., Ltd. has always firmly adhered to value-based and healthy competition driven by innovation.

In recent years, Aiko Solar Co., Ltd. has adopted a product strategy of mining customer needs through customer classification, designing scenario-based products after summarizing the needs, providing differentiated value through scenario-based products, and then setting relevant prices based on the differentiated value.

"By leveraging the differentiated advantages of ABC products, we have created a business model based on value pricing, sharing product value with customers through more power generation per unit area. Our products have obvious price premiums compared with similar TOPCon products in both domestic and overseas markets." A relevant person from Aiko Solar Co., Ltd. said.

It is understood that in the domestic distributed market, the price of Aiko's ABC modules is about 10% higher than that of TOPCon modules, and in the overseas distributed market, the price premium ranges from 15% to 50%. In centralized bidding projects, Aiko bids at a price about 8% - 10% higher and has won multiple bids from companies such as Datang, South-to-North Water Diversion Project, and PetroChina. The bidding price is higher than the production cost.

The reason for being able to achieve differentiated pricing is because Aiko's ABC modules have stronger product capabilities.

This is inseparable from the company's long-term commitment to a technology innovation-driven approach.

Throughout the history of the photovoltaic industry, Aiko Solar Co., Ltd. has led several important technological revolutions in the photovoltaic industry. In the P-type era, it invented the tubular PERC technology and the double-sided large-size battery technology, and successfully achieved large-scale mass production of single-crystalline PERC batteries. In the N-type era, Aiko released the ABC battery in 2021 and achieved GW-level mass production of ABC modules in 2022.

It is revealed that currently Aiko has three major R & D centers, including the Zhuhai Aiko R & D Center, the Yiwu Global Photovoltaic Joint Innovation Center, and the Solarlab AIKO Europe in Freiburg, Germany, as well as more than 20 branch R & D institutions. Its R & D investment in the past three years has exceeded 3.2 billion yuan, and the proportion of R & D personnel has reached 20%.

As of the end of 2024, Aiko had applied for 1,021 patents related to BC technology globally, including 100 basic patents covering the core structure of ABC batteries, forming a patent layout across the entire industrial chain of silicon wafers, batteries, and module packaging. It adds more than 500 ABC technology proposals every year.

The long-term and continuous high R & D investment has brought Aiko Solar Co., Ltd. a unique high-quality competitiveness in product capabilities.

Notably, Aiko's "unique skill" is the silver-free metallized copper interconnection process.

For a long time, solar cells have been highly dependent on the precious metal silver. Silver paste accounts for more than 30% of the non-silicon cost, and the proportion is increasing with the rising price of silver. According to the prediction of the World Silver Association, by 2050, silver paste used in photovoltaics will consume 90% of the world's total silver, and the entire industry may face a situation of no silver available in the future.

Therefore, silver reduction has become a key area that the current photovoltaic industry urgently needs to make breakthroughs in. While other enterprises are still in the laboratory stage, Aiko has broken through on the path of silver reduction and become the first photovoltaic enterprise to "taste the crab".

With the support of copper interconnection technology, the anti-cracking ability of ABC batteries has been greatly enhanced. This is because the high-temperature sintering process of silver grid lines can damage silicon wafers, while the copper interconnection process does not require sintering, making the silicon wafers more durable. Moreover, compared with silver grid lines + copper solder strips, the combination of copper grid lines and copper solder strips of the same element is closer, with stronger tensile performance, and can effectively disperse surface stress when subjected to external impacts.

Meanwhile, the excellent anti-cracking performance has also significantly improved the overall reliability of the modules. Even after the battery cells are cracked due to extreme impacts such as hail, thanks to the unique advantages of copper grid lines, ABC batteries can still maintain stronger power generation capacity, and the conductive network will not "paralyze".

Under the same impact, compared with traditional silver grid line TOPCon batteries, Aiko's copper grid line ABC batteries can reduce power loss by 24%, and compared with other silver grid line BC batteries, the power loss is reduced by 11%.

"So far, except for Aiko, no other photovoltaic enterprise in the world can produce single-sided and double-sided non-silver copper interconnection modules, indicating that our mass production technology has a relatively high 'moat'." Chen Gang, Chairman of Aiko Solar Co., Ltd., once said.

The sales data also shows that Aiko's persistence is worthwhile.

In fact, since 2025, Aiko Solar Co., Ltd.'s ABC modules have been highly favored by high-value markets, and the number of on-hand orders has continued to grow at a high rate. Even affected by the traditional off-season for installation and the Spring Festival holiday, the newly added on-hand orders for ABC modules in the first quarter of 2025 exceeded 5GW, showing a good growth trend.

Over the past two decades, China's photovoltaic industry has gone through a difficult but glorious innovation path from being "dependent on foreign markets, technologies, and raw materials" to leading the world. Now, in the competition for ultimate photoelectric conversion efficiency, Aiko is becoming a new benchmark in the industry with its leading ABC technology.