A very thin (250 nm), highly conductive (annealed), non-texturized DC-sputtered aluminum-doped zinc oxide layer (ZnO:Al) deposited on a textured glass is used as substrate for thin-film silicon solar cells. Compared to the classical approach, where wet-chemically texturized ZnO:Al on planar glass is used, this approach allows a reduction in the as-deposited ZnO:Al thickness of almost 70% while at the same time, thanks to the good light trapping capability of the glass texture the efficiency of the cells was maintained at the high level of 10.9%. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.