THe Financial Times reports that although the Copenhagen-listed company has seen its world market share slide amid an explosive growth in the Chinese market, where domestic competitors take more than 75% of orders for new capacity, Ditlev Engel, chief executive, insisted on Thursday that he would not compete on price.
‘We offer the big utilities a product that will bring them the lowest price per kilowatt hour in the long term,’ Mr Engel said in an interview at Vestas’ new plant in Inner Mongolia, the northern Chinese region at the heart of the country’s wind energy boom.
China became the world’s fourth-largest wind turbine market after more than doubling its total installed capacity last year to more than 12,000MW, growth that put it at more than three times the pace of the rest of the world, according to the China Wind Energy Association.
Most of that build-up is happening in Inner Mongolia: the grasslands of the far-flung, sparsely populated region, traditionally dotted with sheep and horses. It now houses turbines capable of producing 3735MW, or nearly one-third of China’s total capacity.
Vestas’ global market share stood at 27% in 2007, down from well over 30% cent a few years ago.
In China, Vestas accounted for 9.6% of all new capacity last year, making it the country’s largest foreign supplier.
But that contribution pales in comparison with local competitors. Sinovel, Goldwind and DEC, the three largest domestic turbine suppliers, accounted for close to 20% each of the new capacity.