IPO Radar | Yingfa Ruineng backed by Longi, once suffered a net loss of 864 million yuan in a single year amid intense competition in the photovoltaic industry

Interface News reporter | Guo Jingjing

The website of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) shows that Sichuan Yingfa Ruirui Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Yingfa Ruirui Energy”), an N-type TOPCon cell manufacturer, recently submitted its Hong Kong Main Board IPO application materials for the second time.

Interface News learned that in June 2023, the company tried to get to the capital markets. It first attempted an IPO on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s Main Board, but within less than a month it withdrew its listing application. The reason for the withdrawal was “uncertainty in the company’s future development strategy, changes in the market environment, and the timeline for the company’s A-share listing.”

Two years later, the Hong Kong IPO prospectus publicly disclosed by Yingfa Ruirui Energy reveals more information. The company had encountered a “life-or-death” crisis around 2024, with a huge loss of RMB 864 million that year. In 2025, it turned a profit of RMB 857 million, but as of the end of December of that year, cash and cash equivalents were only RMB 655 million, while total liabilities in the same period were as high as RMB 8.689 billion.

Now, under high capital pressure, Yingfa Ruirui Energy has chosen to switch its focus to the Hong Kong stock market. After submitting its Hong Kong Main Board IPO application materials for the first time in August 2025, the application later “lapsed” after six months, and it submitted the filing again in March 2026.

Betting on N-type battery cells

Currently, in the global photovoltaic battery cell market, more than 80% of products are N-type TOPCon battery cells. In recent years, Yingfa Ruirui Energy has completed its transformation from P-type to N-type battery cells. It has set up three major production bases in Yibin, Mianyang, and Indonesia, and in 2025 moved its headquarters to Yibin, Sichuan.

Based on its R&D system of “mass-production generation (TOPCon), reserve generation (BC), and R&D generation (perovskite tandem)”, Yingfa Ruirui Energy says that on top of its N-type TOPCon battery cell platform, it has developed an N-type xBC battery cell technology route. In August 2025, it became the world’s first specialized manufacturer of photovoltaic battery cells to commercialize N-type xBC battery cells.

According to the latest release of the 2025 photovoltaic battery cell shipment ranking by InfoLink Consulting in February 2026, Yingfa Ruirui Energy ranks second globally in battery cell shipments, behind only Tongwei Co., Ltd.

The prospectus shows that from 2023 to 2025 (during the reporting period), the revenue generated by Yingfa Ruirui Energy’s P-type PERC battery cells fell from 91.9% of total revenue to 13.8% and 3.6%, respectively. Meanwhile, the share of revenue generated by its N-type TOPCon battery cells increased from 7.1% to 81.2% and 88.1%. In 2025, its N-type xBC battery cells began to generate revenue, contributing 3.2% in revenue.

For years, Yingfa Ruirui Energy has “replenished cash flow” through financing. From June 2022 to before this IPO filing, the company completed four rounds of financing, receiving investment of more than RMB 3.4 billion. It brought in external shareholders including Yibin High Investment (Yibin Gaotou) under the Yibin state-owned assets supervision and administration commission, as well as national green funds and Jianxin Investment, among others. By the end of July 2025, after its last round of pre-IPO financing, the company’s post-investment valuation was about RMB 8.594 billion.

After the massive loss in 2024, overseas revenue still carries hidden concerns

The prospectus shows that from 2023 to 2025, Yingfa Ruirui Energy achieved revenue of RMB 10.494 billion, RMB 4.359 billion, and RMB 8.713 billion, respectively. Profit for the year was RMB 410 million, -RMB 864 million, and RMB 857 million, respectively.

For its massive loss in 2024, Yingfa Ruirui Energy’s explanation is that “the rapid expansion of photovoltaic battery cell production capacity led to an imbalance between supply and demand, intensifying market competition. In addition, as the cost of silicon wafers declined and improvements in production processes reduced non-silicon costs, photovoltaic battery cell manufacturers chose to cut prices to compete for market share, ultimately causing the selling price of photovoltaic battery cells to fall.”

Starting in 2022, the global photovoltaic industry attracted a large amount of investment due to high profitability. The shift from P-type to N-type battery cells further drove demand for new production capacity, resulting in large-scale expansion starting from the fourth quarter of 2023.

According to the data from Forrester Sullivan, the global supply of photovoltaic battery cells rose from 799.9GW in 2023 to 1,105.8GW in 2025, but demand growth lagged behind, creating an oversupply. As a result, the surplus between supply and demand expanded from 248.1GW to 491.5GW, and the surplus between supply and demand in the China market also grew from 253.9GW in 2023 to 470.2GW in 2025.

Facing the industry’s “price war,” Yingfa Ruirui Energy could not avoid it. The average selling price of its P-type PERC battery cells dropped sharply from RMB 0.67 per watt in 2023 to RMB 0.25 per watt in 2024, a year-on-year decrease of 62.69%. The average selling price of its N-type TOPCon battery cells fell from RMB 0.44 per watt in 2023 by 36.4% to RMB 0.28 per watt in 2024.

During this period, silicon wafers—accounting for nearly half of total photovoltaic battery cell costs—also saw price cuts. The unit procurement price of silicon wafers fell from RMB 0.44 per watt in 2023 to RMB 0.19 per watt in 2024. The price gap between the average selling price of P-type PERC battery cells and the unit procurement price of silicon wafers narrowed from RMB 0.23 per watt in 2023 to RMB 0.06 per watt in 2024.

Since 2025, Yingfa Ruirui Energy has adjusted its product structure in parallel: it shut down the production lines for P-type PERC battery cells at its Tianchang base and focused on increasing effective capacity for N-type TOPCon battery cells.

With scale effects lowering manufacturing and labor costs, Yingfa Ruirui Energy’s N-type TOPCon battery cells in 2025 were maintained at RMB 0.3 per watt. Its average cost of sales decreased from RMB 0.3 per watt in 2024 by 16.7% to RMB 0.25 per watt in 2025. The average spread between its average selling price and the average unit procurement price of silicon wafers widened from RMB 0.12 per watt in 2024 to RMB 0.15 per watt in 2025 (the unit procurement price of silicon wafers also fell from RMB 0.16 per watt in 2024 to RMB 0.15 per watt in 2025).

Since 2026, the competitive pressure Yingfa Ruirui Energy faces has continued. Starting April 1, 2026, the 9% VAT export tax rebate for photovoltaic products will be officially canceled. This means the era of subsidies in the photovoltaic industry has ended, and the industry will shift to competing based on true market competitiveness.

Demand in the photovoltaic battery sector is still weak. “Upstream and downstream companies are relatively pessimistic about the outlook. Downstream companies have extremely low purchasing willingness and are also putting strong pressure on prices.” On March 29, the Silica Industry Branch of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association disclosed that in that week, the price of silicon feedstock fell to around RMB 40,000 per ton. Silicon wafers and battery prices also declined simultaneously, with battery cell mainstream prices down 2.44% week-over-week.

Against this backdrop, since 2025, Yingfa Ruirui Energy has increased its efforts to expand overseas. According to the company’s disclosures, from 2023 to 2025, its overseas revenue increased from RMB 342 million to RMB 468 million and RMB 3.526 billion, with the share rising from 3.3% to 10.7% and 40.5%. Among them, the revenue share related to the U.S. market rose from 2.4% in 2024 to 14.3% in 2025. India is its second-largest overseas market; its revenue share rose from 2.5% in 2023 to 7.4% in 2024 and 11.9% in 2025.

However, any trade restrictions implemented by the countries where Yingfa Ruirui Energy conducts its business—such as anti-dumping duties, new tariffs, applications for countervailing duties, or quota fees, as well as any retaliatory tariffs arising from them—could significantly affect its overseas market sales and product pricing.

“Relying on” LONGi Green Energy?

Interface News noted that Yingfa Ruirui Energy has multiple major related-party transactions, especially a deep dependence on LONGi Green Energy (601012.SH). “We believe there is no over-reliance on LONGi and that we have the ability to reduce our reliance on LONGi,” Yingfa Ruirui Energy said.

From 2023 to 2025, Yingfa Ruirui Energy supplied photovoltaic battery cell products to LONGi Green Energy. The sales amounts were RMB 2.562 billion, RMB 893 million, and RMB 938 million, accounting for 24.4%, 20.5%, and 10.8% of total revenue, respectively. In the same period, the company purchased raw materials from LONGi Green Energy, with purchase amounts of RMB 2.872 billion, RMB 1.239 billion, and RMB 1.174 billion, accounting for 24.8%, 13.1%, and 13.5% of total purchases, respectively.

Also according to the prospectus, from 2026 to 2028, the upper limit of transaction amounts for Yingfa Ruirui Energy to supply photovoltaic battery cell products to LONGi Green Energy is RMB 2.5 billion per year. The upper limits of expenses for Yingfa Ruirui Energy to purchase raw materials from LONGi Green Energy are both RMB 1.5 billion per year.

“We mainly rely on patents licensed by LONGi to produce N-type HPBC battery cells (a specific model of an N-type xBC photovoltaic battery cell product),” Yingfa Ruirui Energy said. If it is unable to timely renew the cooperation agreement with LONGi Green Energy, it may have a material adverse impact on the R&D of its N-type xBC battery cells and the sales of the products, as well as on its overall operations.

Starting in 2027, Yingfa Ruirui Energy’s procurement arrangements with LONGi Green Energy will转为 a market-based framework. Yingfa Ruirui Energy said LONGi Green Energy has agreed not to arbitrarily refuse to sell externally, and once approval is granted, the proportion of external sales will not be subject to any restrictions.

It should be noted that during the reporting period, Yingfa Ruirui Energy’s inventory continued to rise, but the number of days for inventory turnover also increased. From 2023 to 2025, its inventory increased from RMB 277 million to RMB 1.153 billion and RMB 1.894 billion. At the same time, the inventory turnover days were 10 days, 47 days, and 69 days, respectively. In January 2026, the company’s unused inventory as of December 31, 2025 of RMB 924 million, or 48.8%, had subsequently been sold or used.

“Increases in raw material costs, business expansion, and the company’s expectation that the market price of photovoltaic battery cells would rise in 2025, along with an increase in strategic inventory in the third quarter, led to an increase in finished goods, which was partially offset by a decrease in work-in-progress.” Yingfa Ruirui Energy also added that compared with its capacity expansion, the fierce competition across the industry among downstream manufacturers led to slower inventory turnover, thereby increasing finished goods inventory. “We expanded our overseas sales business; compared with domestic sales, the delivery cycle is longer, which leads to higher inventory levels, including goods in transit and inventory before shipment.”