Today, Motech will hold our Annual Shareholders’ Meeting in Tainan. I know I am no Warren Buffett, but still, I feel I should write something for our friends and shareholders. After all, it has been a long time since my previous writing in August 2007.
A lot has happened during this time. Our previous Chairman, Mr. Leo Cheng, retired in January and then passed away in March. The culture of honesty and integrity he brought to Motech will live on. After I took over the position of Chairman and CEO, I appointed Dr. Kuoen Chang as the President of our Solar Division. Dr. Chang is the first engineer I interviewed in 1998 and later hired when we decided to start our solar business.
As we all know that the severe polysilicon shortage of the PV industry is already in its fourth year, and that Motech has been reluctant on becoming too dependent on long-term supply contracts. We believe over-dependence on take-or-pay, long-term purchase contracts will become a liability when the polysilicon shortage is over. I am happy to say that even with all these factors, we still have been able to grow steadily. With 176 MWp of solar cell shipment last year, we became the sixth largest solar cell manufacturer in the world. This year, we are on track to ship the stated goal of 280 MWp of cells. Next year, 2009, we feel confident about the goal of 400 MWp or more of cell production.
In our effort to improve our cost structure and produce part of the wafers we need, we have already installed about 100 MWp/year of multicrystalline ingot growth and wafer slicing capacity. We now have a solar cell production capacity of more than 320 MWp/year. With our Kunshan, China factory (Fab. 3) coming on line in August and our Fab. 1 upgrade, we will soon have a cell production capacity of more than 400 MWp/year.
Earlier this year, we purchased an existing factory building (our Fab. 5) right across the street from our Fab. 1. With our existing four Fabs situated close together in Tainan’s South Taiwan Science Park, we already have enough factory space for more than 200 MWp/year of ingot growth, 500 MWp/year of wafer slicing, and 900 MWp/year of cell fabrication. Our Fab. 3 in Kunshan, China has enough space for more than 300 MWp/year of cell fabrication and 200 MWp/year of wafer slicing.
We are confident about our future growth, especially once AE Polysilicon begins mass production of feedstock material for us. With our continuous effort on improving our product quality and our cost structure, we believe we are only at the beginning of our growth curve.
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