In 2021, benefiting from the significant growth in downstream demand, the entire LED industry chain maintained a boom in production and sales in the first half of the year, and the industry's overall revenue and net profit also increased significantly.
However, since entering the fourth quarter, the growth rate of the entire LED industry has slowed down significantly, and the winter is ahead of schedule.
As far as LED lighting is concerned, after more than ten years of development, the current penetration rate in the domestic market is close to 90%, and the weak growth in the future is obvious.
According to the report of the LED Research Institute (GGII), China's general lighting market is expected to grow by only 1.67% in 2022.
Dr. Zhang Xiaofei, chairman of Gaogong LED, also believes that LED general lighting has basically been "lying flat" at present.
The latest customs statistics show that in February 2022, the national export value of lamps, lighting devices and their parts was 46.76 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.2%.
With the general lighting market experiencing sluggish growth and declining exports, it is crucial to break through the lighting segments such as health lighting, smart lighting, landscape lighting, automotive lighting, horticultural lighting and UV LED.
The "window" of intelligent lighting has come, and the acceptance needs to be improved
"Lighting intelligence is a market with huge potential, and will become the main trend and competition in the lighting industry." said Huang Xi, an expert on intelligent lighting products in Foshan.
According to the research data of the LED Research Institute of High-tech Industry Research Institute (GGII), the scale of China's smart lighting market will reach 78 billion yuan in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 34.5%.
Under the huge market, the pace of layout of lighting companies in the field of intelligent lighting has been significantly accelerated. Sanxiong Aurora, Foshan Lighting, NVC Lighting, Sunshine Lighting, Signify, etc. have continuously launched new intelligent lighting products to accelerate the promotion of the application market. In addition, Huawei, Ali, Tencent, Xiaomi, Haier and other Internet and home appliance companies have also established their own smart ecosystems across borders.
But for now, the market acceptance of smart lighting is not high, and it cannot change the overall situation for the entire LED lighting industry. Dr. Zhang Xiaofei proposed, "Intelligent lighting products should be compatible and actively integrated into the ecology. At the same time, their functions should be easy to use. In product development, more special functions such as artificial intelligence should be developed."
Li Fuhai, director of the R&D Department of the White Light Devices Division of Nationstar Optoelectronics, also believes that "lighting is no longer limited to lighting, but returns to the original intention of lighting people, which is to add luster to people's lives, and the trend of integration of intelligence and health. It caters to this original intention.”
Health integrates intelligence and becomes a rookie field
At present, healthy lighting has become a popular star product in the LED industry. In the eyes of LED upstream, midstream and downstream enterprises, healthy lighting will be a new trend in the future industry.
Throughout the LED lighting industry chain, every link is actively deploying healthy lighting. However, although the healthy lighting market is hot, the market acceptance has not kept up, and even many people in the industry are beginning to feel confused about the future direction of the healthy lighting industry.
According to the analysis of the relevant person in charge of Sunshine Lighting, "Just like when LED lighting and intelligent lighting were just starting, each company's own cognition and understanding of healthy lighting are still fragmented and one-sided, and this situation is transmitted to the market. It will cause confusion among users in terms of needs and perceptions.”
The relevant person in charge of Nationstar Optoelectronics also pointed out, "At present, the healthy lighting industry does not have a clear guiding direction. It has always been in a state where users have pain points and enterprises are confused. Most of the major industries are in a state of closed doors."
So how will healthy lighting develop?
Zhang Shuo, senior industry marketing manager of Signify Greater China, believes that "the future of healthy lighting is the combination of wisdom."
When it comes to wisdom, people usually think of dimming and toning in different environments; when it comes to health, people usually think of healthy eye care. The integration of wisdom and health has brought new growth opportunities to the market.
It is understood that the application fields of products integrating wisdom and health are becoming more and more extensive, and now cover disinfection and sterilization, medical health, education health, agricultural health, home health and other fields.
Especially in the field of education and health, Op Lighting, Sunlight Lighting, Foshan Lighting, NVC Lighting, Sanxiong Aurora, etc. have launched smart educational lighting solutions to help educational lighting achieve fundamental changes.
It is worth noting that while the integration of wisdom and health brings new growth opportunities to the market, it also faces many challenges. For example, is the product smart or not? Are you healthy?
The growth rate of landscape lighting is expected to exceed 11%, becoming a bright spot
According to the data of the LED Research Institute (GGII), China's LED landscape lighting market will reach 86 billion yuan in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 11%; it is expected that in 2023, the Chinese LED landscape lighting market will reach 100 billion yuan.
The landscape lighting industry continues to improve. On the one hand, the fields of beautiful China, smart cities, green lighting, and night travel economy, which are strongly advocated and encouraged by relevant policies, have developed rapidly; on the other hand, the landscape lighting industry has also followed The update and iteration of LED, 5G communication, laser, holographic projection, big data and other technical fields have carried out comprehensive cross-border integration, forming a new industry form that combines artistry, technology and intelligence.
Roman shares also pointed out that "the continuous advancement of urban renewal has formed a broader market opportunity."
The market prospects are promising, and landscape lighting companies have also frequently reported good news of winning bids. According to the observation of Gaogong LED, in 2021, LED companies such as Huati Technology, Horsai, Wanrun Technology, Mingjiahui, Roman Shares, and Xinyang Blu-ray have successively won bids for landscape lighting projects.
"The development of landscape lighting has not yet reached the fastest pace. With the continuous fermentation of the cultural and tourism industries, landscape lighting will develop more rapidly in the future." Dr. Zhang Xiaofei said.
Of course, landscape lighting is also faced with the problem that the market entry threshold is high and it is greatly affected by relevant policies.
Can the plant lighting heat continue?
In the first three quarters of 2021, plant lighting accelerated its blowout.
According to statistics from the LED Research Institute (GGII), the global plant lighting market will exceed US$3 billion in 2020, of which my country's LED plant lighting exports will exceed US$500 million, an increase of 426.3% over the same period last year. GGII analysts said that from the perspective of demand, it is expected that there will still be a large market growth space in the future.
The horticultural lighting market ushered in a blowout growth, and the upper, middle and downstream links of the LED lighting industry chain accelerated to enter the horticultural lighting market, aiming to catch up with the dividends brought by the rapid development of the market.
According to the observation of Gaogong LED, upstream chip companies Sanan Optoelectronics, Huacan Optoelectronics, Ganzhao Optoelectronics, Zhaoyuan Optoelectronics, etc., midstream packaging companies Jinko Electronics, Guoxing Optoelectronics, Xuyu Optoelectronics, etc., downstream lighting companies Foshan Lighting, Sunshine Lighting , Osram, Signify, etc., LED drive power companies Songsheng Co., Ltd., Inventel, Chuanglian Power, Netac Intelligent, etc. are all actively deploying.
So, is plant lighting really hot or false?
According to Li Xuewen, a technical expert of Xuyu Optoelectronics, "Plant lighting is an advantageous track in the LED lighting industry." Dr. Zhang Xiaofei also believes that the development of the plant lighting market is one of the keys to breaking the situation for lighting companies in the future. "
However, Dr. Zhang Xiaofei also pointed out, "At present, plant lighting still mainly relies on the export market. Most of the participating companies are small in size, and their investment is seriously insufficient. The products are mainly low-end, resulting in low economic benefits."
Some people in the industry also said that the outbreak of the plant lighting market will be a short-term phenomenon, and how to achieve sustainable development in the future is a problem that LED lighting companies really need to think deeply about.
Judging from the situation in the fourth quarter of last year, the growth momentum of plant lighting has been suppressed.
UVC from explosive growth to return to rationality
As a booming emerging industry in the past two years, UVC LED has grown from explosive growth to return to rationality after a new round of market reshuffle.
As we all know, UVC-LED has excellent sterilization effect on viruses, air pollution and water pollution, but because UVC-LED band is "invisible light", it is difficult for users to perceive its working status and the quality of its light source. more difficult to judge.
In response to this "pain point", Nationstar has made innovative breakthroughs in core technologies such as high WPE, high air tightness, long life of thermal management, and wavelength, and established a new benchmark for high-quality UVC-LED light sources.
Focusing on UVC LEDs, Lianjing Intelligent, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jinko Electronics, has also developed and designed an on-board sterilization module solution for the interior of automobiles in conjunction with domestic first-tier OEMs. The module adopts the PCBA circuit design scheme independently developed by Lianjing Intelligent. , Combined with the design of 4 UVC and UVA light sources in the 270nm band of Jinko Electronics, the sterilization effect of UVC and the strong penetrating ability of UVA are combined, and the sterilization rate is higher and the effect is better.
Automotive LED companies "gradually" enter the car factory supply chain
2021 is a year of rapid growth for the automotive lighting market.
As we all know, it may take about 2 years for automotive LEDs to enter the pre-installation supply chain of the car factory. At the same time, LED companies need to pass various certifications in the automotive field, which consumes a lot of time and human and material resources.
After the forward-looking layout in recent years, Jinko Electronics, Foshan Lighting and other industrial chain enterprises have begun to enter the supply chain of the depot.
As far as Foshan Lighting is concerned, in order to speed up the pace of expanding and strengthening the automotive lighting business, it plans to acquire Nanning Liaowang through equity acquisition and capital increase with its own funds of 488 million yuan.
Up to now, Foshan Lighting has entered the supply system of BAIC New Energy and Ideal Auto. Lei Zihe, general manager of Foshan Lighting, revealed, "If the company successfully acquires Nanning Liaowang Auto Lighting Company, it is expected to cooperate with more new energy vehicle companies in the future."
