Maxeon announced it will restructure its business to focus exclusively on the U.S. market. The global company based in Singapore will work out a deal with the parent company of its majority shareholder (TCL) to sell its European, Asian and Latin American sales and marketing. TCL will form a new unit, TCL SunPower International, for Maxeon’s former non-U.S. entities, including Maxeon’s manufacturing operations in the Philippines.
Solar panel assembly at Maxeon’s facility in Mexico.
With the new exclusive focus on the United States, Maxeon said it has executed a five-year lease of an existing building in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and plans to begin solar panel manufacturing at the 2-GW facility in early 2026. Maxeon had previously planned to build a solar cell and panel manufacturing facility in Albuquerque from scratch.
“As Maxeon intensifies its focus on the U.S. market, our priority is to further expand our growing residential and commercial partner network and support our well-established base of utility-scale customers,” said George Guo, Maxeon’s CEO. “This strategic re-focusing of our business is designed to keep us closer and more attuned to the needs of our U.S. customer base, allowing us to leverage Maxeon’s deep experience and top-tier reputation for product innovation and quality that are a result of almost 40 years of technology leadership and investments in intellectual property.”
Guo also stated that just module assembly will happen at the the 2-GW facility for now, and Maxeon will continue to evaluate its longer-term objective of solar cell manufacturing.
Maxeon announced earlier this month that its Mexican-assembled solar panels using Malaysian solar cells were being held by U.S. Customs as CBP increased its scrutiny of solar panel supply chains, looking for connections to Uyghur forced labor. Although these solar panels had no association with the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region or often China at all, Maxeon’s selling of Asian business assets to TCL should improve documentation speed. There was no mention of Maxeon’s Malaysian operations in today’s decision.
