With the Japanese yen rising to a 15-year high, Japan-based solar companies have increased outsourcing to Taiwan-based solar cell makers for cost reasons. Among Taiwan's solar cell makers, Motech Industries, Gintech Energy, Neo Solar Power and Delsolar have strong ties with their customers in Japan, and are expected to benefit from the latest development.

High-level executives from Gintech indicated that orders from Japan are indeed showing signs of an increase, but the company is unable to accept all the orders due to limited capacity. Gintech's current capacity is 930MWp and will expand to 1.4-1.65GWp in 2011.

According to media reports, Sharp and Sanyo have announced that they will step up sourcing to Taiwan-based solar cell makers in 2010. Sanyo began outsourcing solar cell production from April 2010, and procurement for the fiscal year ending March 2011 is expected total 10-30MWp, and should increase to more than 50MWp the following year for an about 10% share of total cell production. Sharp procured 15% of its solar cell needs from outside sources in 2009.

People familiar with the matter pointed out that actual orders are even stronger than the reported figures since even second-tier solar cell makes have received orders. Japan's solar market has been on the rise since the government reinstated its FIT (feed-in-tariff) policy in September 2009.