The fall of the monster stock: the factory has been shut down for 58 days, pushing Guosheng Technology to the very edge of a precipice.

The photovoltaic industry is undergoing fierce internal competition and capacity clearing, and Guosheng Technology is facing the ST crisis.

Energy Foresight learned that on the evening of November 3, Guosheng Technology (603778.SH) issued an announcement of less than 2,000 words, the announcement shows that three photovoltaic subsidiaries have suspended production since September 8 and have not resumed operation to date, with no active production order in hand. If production cannot be restarted before December 7, the Shanghai Stock Exchange may impose other risk warnings on it — which is the "ST" familiar to investors.

It has been 58 days since the production suspension as of November 5. From September 8 to December 7, it is exactly 90 days.

The 90-day period is not set arbitrarily. Article 9.8.1 of the Stock Listing Rules lists several circumstances for imposing other risk warnings, one of which is that "the company's production and operation activities are severely affected, and it is expected that normal operation cannot be resumed within three months". The company calculated this rule in reverse and drew a clear line for itself.

One end of the line is the workshop, and the other end is the stock price. According to the third quarterly report, the single-quarter operating revenue was -18.0724 million yuan. On April 9, its intraday price once reached 34.27 yuan, which corresponds to a market value of about 22.6 billion yuan converted by the current share capital; on November 5, it rose 6.61% to 7.42 yuan, and once touched the 7.66 yuan daily limit during the trading session. The photovoltaic equipment sector as a whole rose 6.23% that day. The 6.61% increase was partially driven by the sector trend, but the bet on production resumption was also clearly reflected in the trading volume.

01

Three Months

From Ten-Bagger Stock to a Risk Notice

The beginning of the story is nothing new. Guosheng Technology was formerly known as Qianjing Landscape, which went public in 2015 and engaged in landscape design and engineering, and once gained great popularity during the Xiong'an market boom. In November 2022, it acquired seven photovoltaic subsidiaries from Guosheng Energy, crossed the border to develop heterojunction and TOPCon cell modules. After the name change, its valuation logic was completely renewed. According to the 2025 annual report, the revenue from photovoltaic modules and cells reached 784 million yuan, accounting for 98.50% of the total operating revenue — the old landscape business only accounts for a tiny fraction of its total revenue.

The capital market gave a very generous valuation for this transformation. On April 9, 2026, the intraday stock price touched 34.27 yuan, and the market called it a "ten-bagger stock". It closed at 6.95 yuan on November 3, down 60.51% since the beginning of the year, and nearly 80% lower than its peak price. Another set of figures disclosed on the same day was even more worrying: the controlling shareholder Guosheng Energy holds 108 million shares, accounting for 16.41% of the total share capital, with a pledge rate of 99.63%. The total number of shares frozen, waiting for freeze and with judicial marks accounts for 119.34% of its holdings, and 33.7073 million shares have entered the judicial auction procedure.

There is a huge gap in Guosheng Technology's financial status. It lost 69 million yuan in 2023, 106 million yuan in 2024, 573 million yuan in 2025, and another 157 million yuan in the first three quarters of 2026. The attributable net assets dropped from 311 million yuan at the beginning of the year to 152 million yuan, a 50% decline. For a company with net assets of 152 million yuan, all three of its subsidiaries under its name have suspended production, and the account is hard to balance.

For the clause triggering the risk warning, the exchange will not care how advanced your technical route is, nor how many times you have told the heterojunction story, it only asks one question — whether the machines are running or not.

The A-share market's memory for concepts is often only as long as a single positive candlestick. Seven months ago, the same factories and the same equipment were called "next-generation technology"; seven months later, they have become "fixed expenses" on the financial statements.

02

0.65 Yuan Per Watt

Lose Money on Every Piece Sold

According to the data from TrendForce in mid-October, the quoted price of first-tier TOPCon modules is 0.70 to 0.72 yuan per watt, and the actual transaction price has dropped to 0.65 to 0.69 yuan per watt. The dense polysilicon material price fell from 52 yuan per kilogram at the beginning of the year to 32.5 yuan per kilogram in early July. The statistics from Shanghai Nonferrous Metals Network are more straightforward: the global module demand in 2026 is about 536GW, while the production capacity reaches 1100GW — there is an extra 564GW in between, which is almost enough to double the global annual demand.

According to the statistics of the National Energy Administration, the newly added domestic photovoltaic installed capacity in the first half of the year was 72.07GW, compared with 212GW in the same period of 2025, down about 66% year on year.

The output of all four links in the manufacturing sector declined across the board: polysilicon -9.8%, silicon wafer -7.3%, cell -21.9%, module -35.1%. Among the 26 listed photovoltaic enterprises that have disclosed their H1 performance forecasts, only 4 are profitable, with a total loss of 18.3 billion to 21.4 billion yuan.

People in the industry do not want to suspend production, but polysilicon furnaces need to maintain high temperature for continuous operation. Once the temperature drops, the material will solidify and the pipeline will agglomerate. To restart, it is necessary to re-commission or even replace the components; the clean workshop for cells has very strict requirements for temperature and humidity. If you stop and restart, the coating and printing processes all need to be recalibrated.

The cost of restarting production may not be more cost-effective than running at a loss. So everyone gritted their teeth to operate at low load, using cash flow to cover losses.

This is the most tangible aspect of "involution" — no one is born wanting to start a price war, it is that the furnaces dare not shut down.

Guosheng Technology explained the -18.0724 million yuan single-quarter operating revenue in its third quarterly report as "revenue offset in the photovoltaic sector", and the reason for the loss is "low capacity utilization and large fixed expenses". The so-called revenue offset, according to accounting logic, usually refers to the return, discount or contract cancellation of previously confirmed orders, and the red offset amount exceeds the newly confirmed revenue of the quarter — the company did not disclose the specific composition, but the trend is not difficult to judge: the orders are not only decreasing, but also being returned.

03

Clearing Out

Starting From Cross-Border Players

The capacity clearing is proceeding in a hidden order. Baoxin Technology originally engaged in sheet metal processing, and bet on heterojunction around 2022. Its 500MW module production line in Lianyungang was put into operation in 2023. When the industry trend reversed, at the end of 2024, it disposed of 100% equity of Lianyungang Baoxin Optoelectronics at a symbolic price of 1 yuan. In early 2026, it put the unfinished HJT module production line equipment in its Inner Mongolia base on the trading platform — the original book value is nearly 78 million yuan, and the assessed value is about 50 million yuan. The equipment is still new, but the assessed value is only 64% of the original value.

Baichuan Changyin is the only A-share listed company focusing on biogas power generation. In August 2023, it announced to invest about 1.4 billion yuan in Huzhou to build a 4GW heterojunction cell factory. The cell production line of Jinzhai Jiayue under Lingda Co., Ltd. suspended production in March 2024, and spun off the entire cell manufacturing business during bankruptcy reorganization in 2026.

The policy force is also pressing down at the same time.

On July 27, the General Rules for Cost Accounting Model of Photovoltaic Industry was implemented, which unified the cost caliber of the four links: silicon material, silicon wafer, cell and module for the first time, and a verifiable standard was finally available to judge "whether products are sold below cost". On July 31, the State Administration for Market Regulation carried out price compliance guidance in Yancheng, Jiangsu. On August 6, 8 polysilicon enterprises including Tongwei, GCL, Daqo and Xinte signed an anti-involution initiative, whose total effective production capacity accounts for more than 90% of the domestic total.

The module grading standard issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology divides products into four grades from A+ to C, with the minimum efficiency threshold of 23.4%; SMM estimates that the stock production capacity that cannot reach grade C exceeds 300GW, accounting for about 30% of the total effective production capacity of the whole industry, of which nearly 40% has been shut down for a long time.

Overseas channels are also narrowing at the same time. The United States completed the sunset review of anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Chinese silicon-based photovoltaic products in February, with an anti-dumping duty rate of 165.04% and countervailing duty rate of 29.72% to 41.57%; on August 6, it imposed an additional 15% tariff on polysilicon derivatives according to Section 232 and set a minimum import price, which will take effect from December 4.

India imposes a 20% basic customs duty plus a 20% agricultural infrastructure development tax on modules, with an effective tax rate of 40%, coupled with the ALMM mandatory procurement list (government projects give priority to purchasing local products). The European Union uses the Net Zero Industry Act and the Foreign Subsidies Regulation to embed localization requirements into public procurement.

The total export value of photovoltaic products in the first half of the year was 17.183 billion US dollars, up 24.3% year on year, which seems to be acceptable, but the increment almost all came from the rush to export before the cancellation of export tax rebate on April 1. Since May, the export volume of silicon wafers, cells and modules has decreased by 33%, 35% and 26.7% month on month respectively.

Demand is shrinking, supply is being compressed administratively, and the group of enterprises in the middle is the most difficult: no technical generation gap, no cost advantage, no overseas production capacity. Guosheng Technology is exactly on this line.

Heterojunction itself is not a wrong technology. According to the calculation of some industry research institutions, the total line investment of HJT in 2026 has dropped to less than 1.2 yuan per watt, the penetration rate of 0BB (busbarless) exceeds 90%, and the silver consumption has been reduced to below 12mg per watt. These progresses are real. But these dividends are only available to those who stay at the table.

There are only three possible outcomes on December 7: getting orders and partially resuming production to light up the production line before the deadline; applying for extension, or taking OEM and low-price orders first to keep the machines running; no movement at the expiration of the term, and being labeled as ST.

In the first two scenarios, the capital market will most likely give a daily limit first. But one thing must be made clear: resuming production to meet the resumption conditions is two different things from resuming production for an order with gross profit.

The former can pull the revenue from negative to positive, but may not pull the gross profit margin out of the negative range. The explanation in the third quarterly report has given a hint — low capacity utilization and large fixed expenses. According to accounting logic, these two items will not disappear automatically after production resumption, but will come back with the re-recognition of depreciation and labor costs.

The real answer is not in the wording of the announcement. When the lights in the factory in Jiawang, Xuzhou are turned on, how many production lines are lit up, and how long they run, are far more practical than the 12 words of "actively seeking high-quality photovoltaic business orders".

December 7 is an administrative deadline. Industrial capacity clearing has no deadline.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Energy Foresight", author: Zhao Jianan, published with authorization from 36Kr.