After Jingke, First Solar sued a leading photovoltaic patent infringement in China.

　　"I’m very sad. China Photovoltaic entered the’ dark forest era’, and patents became weapons of involution. " Qu Xiaohua, founder, chairman and CEO of Artes, publicly stated in February this year.

　　Recently, the eyes of photovoltaic industry have been attracted by the BC patent war between Maxeon and () in Europe. DataBM.com, a new digital energy source, has noticed that the patent war between Artes and First Solar has also started since it was listed on the "American battlefield".

　　According to media reports, at the beginning of this month, First Solar sued Artes in the U.S. District Court of Delaware, accusing the latter of infringing its patented TOPCon technology.

　　Interestingly, First Solar claimed that TOPCon patented technology US9,130,074 was infringed by Artes, and in February this year, the company also accused another photovoltaic leader, Jingke Energy, of infringement.

　　Regarding the alleged infringement of TOPCon’s patented technology, Digital New Energy DataBM.com contacted Artes, and its securities department responded that it has not received the news yet.

　　Artes is under a "technical siege" because of multiple prosecutions?

　　According to the incomplete statistics of digital new energy DataBM.com, in recent years, Artes has been accused of patent infringement by at least five photovoltaic companies, involving technologies such as shingles and TOPCon.

　　On the surface, the patent dispute seems to be a battle for technology patents, but in fact it is a common means of market competition.

　　Just as in the overlapping tile patent dispute with The Solaria Corporation and Maxeon, Artes reached a settlement with the other party, but at the expense of its interests in the United States and Japan.

　　According to Artes’s prospectus in 2023, it finally reached a settlement with Maxeon’s patent dispute on "shingled solar modules" in Japan, but Artes will no longer sell shingled solar modules to Japan before June 30, 2025;

　　In the end, it signed a settlement agreement with The Solaria Corporation on the patent dispute of shingle solar modules, but Artes will no longer sell shingle solar modules to the United States within seven years from the effective date of the settlement agreement.

　　Now, Artes has been sued by Maxeon, Trina Solar and First Solar in the United States and China respectively for patent infringement of TOPCon. Can Artes firmly hold its market share this time?

　　While Artes is mired in the patent whirlpool, what worries the market more is the impact of Artes’s "profit priority" strategy on its future photovoltaic business.

　　The strategy of "profit first" leads to worry

　　Recently, the "TOP10 of PV Module Shipments in China in 2024" produced by Digital New Energy DataBM.com was released. Artes ranked seventh on the list with 31.1GW of shipments, which increased by 0.7GW compared with 2023, but its ranking dropped by one place.

　　The slight increase in shipments and the decline in rankings are actually related to Artes’s "profit first" strategy.

　　As we all know, due to the serious mismatch between supply and demand in the market, the photovoltaic industry has entered a downward cycle in recent years. The photovoltaic enterprises that are "involuted" have opened the "extreme involution mode", and the price war has intensified, so that the industry has entered the abyss of losses, corporate performance is under pressure, and profitable enterprises are few.

　　In this context, Artes delivered a net profit of 2.247 billion yuan in 2024. In this regard, Artes said that this is due to its comprehensive balance between price and shipment, and its initiative to reduce the shipment of photovoltaic products, giving priority to profit.

　　Zhuang Yan, president of Artes, also publicly stated in 2024 that in the current market environment, Artes’s strategy is that profit and cash flow are more important than shipment.

　　In the short term, Artes’s reduction of photovoltaic shipments gives priority to ensuring profits; However, in the long run, the decline in shipments may lead to a shrinking market share. In such a "volume" photovoltaic industry, it is very likely to be seized by other enterprises, so as to miss market opportunities.

　　On the other hand, while shrinking the photovoltaic business front, Artes has ushered in a big explosion of energy storage business. In 2024, Artes’s energy storage business shipments reached 6.5GWh, up over 500% year-on-year.

　　However, the energy storage industry is also facing the dilemma of involution.

　　According to industry data, the current price of energy storage system has dropped to less than 0.5 yuan /Wh, and most energy storage enterprises have "increased their income without increasing their profits".

　　Although Artes’s energy storage business is mainly concentrated overseas, with the rise of geopolitical risks in many places around the world, the rise of trade protectionism in Europe and America, and the development of overseas localized industries, the shipment of energy storage enterprises in China is uncertain.

　　As a result, people in the industry are also worried about Artes’s energy storage business. How long can the high growth of energy storage last? The company’s competitors Trina Solar and Jingke Energy have also gone off the stage to store energy. How can Artes maintain its "Jianghu status" in energy storage?

　　Source: Digital New Energy DNE