Strategy and action

The year 2009 has shown that we have found the right strategic answers to the changing market environment and that we have achieved the revenue target of € 1 billion we set ourselves.

The world markets for solar power products underwent an elementary structural change in the year under review. While the solar industry had previously been production-driven in order to overcome bottlenecks and to service the increasing demand, the market now turned from a sellers’ to a buyers’ market. The worldwide capacities rose by around 50 per cent while demand lagged behind. The result was a strong decline in prices. If manufacturers did not want to base their sales on price only at the expense of margins and quality, cost reductions and productivity increases also had to be achieved. In addition, competition had to be met head on strategically with factors such as design, product warranties and quality, service and closeness to the customer. The solar power market

It is particularly in this turbulent market environment that our strategy has proved to be the correct one.