Data from the IHS 'PV Inverter Market Index' which relies on data collected from all leading PV inverter suppliers shows that global industry revenues reached $1.9 billion in Q3 2014, an increase of nearly 10 percent year-on-year.
Major growth drivers for the quarter were UK, Americas, China and Japan, which combined recorded an increase of $270 million compared to one year previously.
IHS also notes that the EMEA market continued to decline, with revenues decreasing 13 percent year-on-year due to the continued highly competitive environment for suppliers and significantly weakened demand in the key markets such as Germany and Italy.
SMA's limited market share in China and Japan, which were the two largest markets in Q3'14 in inverter shipment terms, and a 3 percent quarter-on-quarter decline in average industry pricing severely impacted SMA's revenues.
At the same time numerous suppliers continued to expand their inverter portfolios and expand their presence in key growth markets such as the USA and the UK which meant that Q3'14 was an extremely competitive quarter for all suppliers.
With SMA's revenue growth lagging global industry growth in the last year, its market share has now fallen significantly and it accounted for approximately 12 percent of industry revenues in Q3 2014.
IHS estimates its global market share for the first 9 months of the year to be 13 percent, having stood as high as 34 percent in 2011, and 16 percent in 2013. Conversely, significant market share gains were made by ABB, TMEIC and Schneider Electric in the third quarter.
