Sungrow: storage revenue overtakes inverters in H1 2026
Sungrow's H1 2026 results: storage revenue of RMB 15.456bn passed inverters for the first time, BESS shipments hit 25 GWh, and Middle East sales fell.
Sungrow H1 2026 results mark a turning point for the world's largest PV inverter maker: storage systems generated RMB 15.456 billion of revenue, exactly 50% of the total, passing inverters for the first time. Group revenue fell 28.99% year-on-year to RMB 30.912 billion (US$4.6 billion) and net profit dropped 32.01% to RMB 5.259 billion. Battery shipments reached 25 GWh.
The numbers Sungrow published on 28 August 2026
| Parameter | Value | Source |
| H1 2026 revenue | RMB 30.912bn (US$4.6bn), -28.99% YoY | Sungrow semi-annual report, 28 Aug 2026 |
| Net profit to parent | RMB 5.259bn, -32.01% YoY | Semi-annual report |
| Quarterly net profit | RMB 2.291bn in Q1, RMB 2.967bn in Q2 (+29% QoQ) | Semi-annual report |
| Storage systems revenue | RMB 15.456bn, 50% of total, -13.18% YoY | Semi-annual report |
| PV inverters and power conversion | RMB 12.388bn, 40.08% of total, -19.17% YoY | Semi-annual report |
| Inverter segment gross margin | 42.72% | Semi-annual report |
| Storage gross margin | 32% in Q1, 35% in Q2 | Semi-annual report |
| BESS shipments | 25 GWh in H1 2026, +28% YoY | Semi-annual report |
| Overseas revenue | RMB 22.690bn, -10.59% YoY; share up from 58.30% to 73.40% | Semi-annual report |
| Mainland China revenue | RMB 8.222bn, -54.71% YoY, 26.60% of total | Semi-annual report |
| AIDC storage order book | ~2 GWh firm orders, pipeline above 10 GWh | Semi-annual report |
Two things are happening at once in that table. The Chinese domestic market collapsed by more than half, and everything outside China held up far better, falling only 10.59%. Sungrow is now a company that earns roughly three-quarters of its revenue abroad.
Why the Middle East line matters more than the headline
Sungrow named weaker sales in the domestic and Middle Eastern markets as a driver of the revenue decline, and specifically pointed to deliveries from a major Saudi project recognised in the same period of 2025. That is a base-effect explanation, not a demand warning: one very large contract booked a year earlier makes the following half look thin.
The Gulf pipeline behind that line is still growing. MEED reported on 13 August 2026, citing a source, that Sungrow will supply the inverters for Kuwait's 1.1 GW Al-Dibdibah Power and Al-Shagaya Renewable Energy phase three zone one IPP, awarded to a Masdar and Fouad AlGhanim & Sons consortium under a 30-year PPA. Utility-scale Gulf demand is lumpy by nature; a single half-year of revenue says very little about it.
What is squeezing storage margins
Sungrow identified three drivers of storage margin volatility: storage duration, regional sales mix and upstream lithium carbonate prices. The global shift towards longer-duration systems pushes margins down, because a longer system sells more cells per megawatt of power conversion equipment — and cells are the commodity part. Lithium carbonate has stabilised between RMB 130,000 and RMB 160,000 per tonne after a sharp rally, and continues to weigh on margins.
Even so, storage gross margin improved from 32% in Q1 to 35% in Q2. Sungrow's own view is that a slow downward drift in utility-scale storage margins is healthy, because it discourages the price wars that have hollowed out the module manufacturers' income statements.
The US retreat and where the capacity goes instead
Sungrow said it anticipates a gradual pullback from the US market, shifting resources to other regions and moving to channel-led operations there. That follows the US executive order restricting imported inverters, BESS and transformers, which targets transmission equipment at 69 kV and above. Sungrow also projects that the European storage market will grow by more than 50% next year.
Capacity that cannot be sold into the United States has to go somewhere. Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Gulf are the three candidates, and the Gulf is the one with the fewest trade barriers.
The SOLTECH view
Our reading is that this result is a supplier-risk story, not a price story, and the two get confused constantly.
- For a villa owner in Dubai: nothing in this report changes what a rooftop system costs. The margin pressure Sungrow describes sits in utility-scale storage and in Chinese domestic sales. What it does mean is that your inverter supplier is now a company whose largest business line is batteries, not inverters — worth remembering when you ask about a 15-year warranty on a residential string inverter. Check the model against DEWA's eligible equipment list, not the brand's balance sheet.
- For an EPC contractor: the useful number is 25 GWh of shipments against falling revenue. That is volume up, price down. If you are quoting storage-attached commercial and industrial projects, budget prices from the last twelve months are probably too high, and a supplier retreating from the US has capacity to sell you. Ask for it.
- For an investor: the concentration risk is now explicit. Overseas revenue moved from 58.30% to 73.40% of the total in one year, which means a single trade action in a major market moves this company. Any project financial model that treats a Chinese equipment supplier's 10-year service obligation as risk-free is not modelling the last eighteen months.
Where we would push back on the coverage: the phrase "Middle East weakness" is being repeated as if Gulf demand had softened. It has not. Sungrow's own explanation is a comparison against a large Saudi delivery booked a year earlier. The honest statement is that we cannot infer Gulf demand from one company's half-year revenue recognition, and neither can anyone else.
Sources: Energy-Storage.News — Sungrow's battery storage revenue tops PV business, H1 shipments hit 25GWh, 2 September 2026, MEED — Kuwait selects developer for Shagaya zone one plant, 13 August 2026, Energy-Storage.News — US executive order banning inverter, BESS and transformer imports.