SMA Solar says no to risky Chinese market

SMA Solar would rather lose global market share than try to enter the risky but fast growing Chinese market.

"Of course, the market is very attractive. But if you can't find a way of setting up a profitable business there, a market entry makes little sense," sadi Pierre-Pascal Urbon, chief executive of SMA Solar.

While Europe, the world's top solar market, is open to all international players, China has been largely sealed off for western groups, which prompted the United States to slap import tariffs on Chinese modules and led Europe to investigate Chinese imports.

Urbon said SMA - whose inverters are a key product in solar plants, helping to feed solar-generated power into the grid - was constantly reviewing whether there were opportunities for the group in China.

Urbon noted that project tenders in China usually favored local players.

The Chinese market accounted for 13 percent of global solar installations in 2011, and is expected to rise to 15 this year, according to data from Brussels-based EPIA, the world's largest solar industry association.

"We will still try to defend our market share. We will fight," Urbon said about his company's market share of just below 30 percent.

For more.