Huawei and Sungrow emerged as the world’s top two solar inverter manufacturers in the first half (H1) of 2025, according to Wood Mackenzie’s Global Solar Inverter Manufacturer Rankings H1 2025 report.

Huawei ranked first with a score of 93.9 out of 100, closely followed by Sungrow at 93.7.

The report evaluated 23 leading inverter manufacturers from seven countries across eight performance criteria, covering around 90% of global shipment volumes in 2024.

Wood Mackenzie noted that competitive advantage is increasingly shaped not only by shipment volumes but also by ESG practices, service capabilities, and supply chain stability.

Wood Mackenzie also highlighted growing market concentration, with the top 10 inverter manufacturers accounting for 71% of global market share in H1 2025.

A key finding in the latest ranking is that ESG practices are maturing among leading inverter suppliers. Six of the top 10 companies achieved an EcoVadis rating of silver or higher, placing them in the top 15% of companies globally for sustainability performance.

Service and warranty offerings have also strengthened across the industry. All top 10 manufacturers now offer 20-year or longer warranty extensions, reflecting rising confidence in inverter longevity and a greater push to align inverter lifespans with solar modules, thereby reducing long-term operational risk for developers and asset owners.

Despite sustained pricing pressure in the inverter segment, Wood Mackenzie said innovation remains robust, differentiating suppliers. Eight of the top 10 manufacturers reinvest more than 6% of revenue in research and development, supporting advances in digitalisation, power-conversion technologies, and faster product refresh cycles, and expanding patent portfolios.

The report pointed to accelerating geographic diversification in manufacturing, as companies respond to shifting global trade dynamics, import barriers, and local content rules. Four of the top 10 inverter manufacturers now maintain global production coverage, with facilities across China, Europe, India, the U.S., Southeast Asia, and Israel.

Mercom has written extensively about how the inverter cybersecurity debate is increasingly feeding into broader energy sovereignty efforts in Europe, India, and the U.S. In Europe, the European Solar Manufacturing Council has called for restrictions on the unregulated and remote-control capabilities of solar inverters from high-risk non-European manufacturers, mostly from China, warning that dependence on such equipment poses strategic risks to the region’s power infrastructure.

India has also moved toward tighter control of inverter telemetry and data flows. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is advancing a vendor-neutral data layer for rooftop solar inverters under the PM Surya Ghar program. The Ministry has been proposed to keep rooftop solar telemetry on servers in India to protect against data leakage.

In the U.S., concerns over Chinese-made inverters have also escalated into a national security issue. Republican lawmakers have warned that Chinese-manufactured solar and battery inverters present public safety, economic, and national security vulnerabilities. They cited reports that Chinese solar components deployed in the U.S. contained undisclosed communication devices that could enable remote access, bypass cybersecurity protections, and potentially allow malicious actors to disrupt large sections of the U.S. grid.