LED Lighting Industry "Rockets"

At present, more than half of the core technologies and patents of the global LED industry are occupied by the developed countries such as the United States and the European Union. China lacks core technologies and patents in the LED field, and there are cruxes where the standards are not uniform and the cooperation between production, study and research is loose, and the product price is also low. Confusion, quality is mixed, low-end products are disorderly, and high-end products are seriously missing. The industry believes that at present, the LED industry has shown a chaotic situation.

Industry winter can hardly prevent investment boom

LED is a semiconductor that can convert electrical energy into light energy. As the world’s most eye-catching next-generation light source, this is listed as one of the seven strategic emerging industries in the country. It contains huge business opportunities and attracts capital crowds. And to.

According to public data, at present, there are more than 8,000 LED manufacturers in China, and they continue to increase at a rate of more than one hundred or even thousands each year.

The reporter was informed that in the past six months, a total of eight LED lighting companies have successfully listed on the domestic market, of which six have landed on the Growth Enterprise Market. Its listing speed is amazing. Last year, there were only seven listed LED companies. On the other hand, in the past year, domestic small and medium-sized LED companies have frequently closed down. In Shenzhen, there were more than 80 LED lighting companies that had closed down, Foshan, Guangdong, and nearly one-tenth of the LED lighting companies closed down in 2011. LED lighting companies in Dongguan and Zhongshan also fell into the cold wave of closures.

According to the latest news, the vision of Shenzhen billion-dollar LED companies is currently falling into the vortex of closure.

At the same time, foreign capital is doing its job in the Chinese market. Recently, Taiwan Dongbei Optoelectronics Group invested USD 25 million in the production of LED optoelectronic devices. It is officially under construction at the Beijing Digital TV Industrial Park. In the future, it will supply LED lighting in North China. In addition, in May of this year, Osram signed a contract with Wuxi to build a new LED assembly plant in the local area. It is expected to be completed and put into production by the end of 2013, and the main package of LED chips will be packaged. Following the official operation of the Chengdu Innovation Center, GE Lighting Xi'an Innovation Center was also established.

The lack of industry labeling pain

At present, there is no uniform standard in China's LED industry. Due to the lack of uniform standards and specifications, there are many types of LED lighting applications in the market, with different performance, poor interchangeability, and frequent outdated products, which pose serious challenges to the reputation of the entire industry.

ISA Secretary-General Yue Ruisheng told reporters that the International Commission on Illumination, the International Electromechanical Committee, the European Light Engine Committee, the U.S. Energy Star, and ISA are all developing LED lighting standards to compete for industry speech rights. .

In China, although local standards have been established and tested in various places, the standards are confusing. The enterprises here are qualified according to the standards, and they become unqualified.

On the other hand, product quality problems caused by the lack of uniform standards are also frequently seen. Recently, some media disclosed that the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Quality Supervision issued the results of a special provincial supervision and inspection of the quality of self-ballasted LED lamps in Guangdong Province. Sampling results show that in the 23 batches of self-ballasted LED inspections, the test failed 17 batches, the failure rate of up to 73.9%.

An industry insider said that poor quality LED products have disrupted market prices, and consumers' trust in LED products has been greatly reduced, leading to a vicious cycle.

It is reported that the slump in the export market in 2011 caused the LED industry to suffer another heavy blow. Overseas LED products such as Christmas tree lighting appliances are almost all exported from China. Under the influence of the European economic crisis and the inability of the United States to recover from economic factors, from the second half of 2011 Since the company’s orders have been substantially reduced, orders in Europe and the United States have fallen by 3 to 50%, which is quite common in the industry.

Domestic enterprises lack of soft power

The reporter learned that although China is a major producer of lighting, China is not a big country of brands, and a large number of lighting products in China are for OEM production.

According to statistics, currently there are more than 8,000 LED manufacturers in China, and more than 5,000 are in the middle and lower reaches of the industry. Among them, there are 1,200 to 1,500 packaging companies, and more than 40, annual sales of over 100 million yuan, and sales of 1,000. There are less than 400 companies between ten thousand yuan and one hundred million yuan, and most of the companies have less than 10 million yuan in sales. It can be seen that although there are a large number of LED companies in China, the scale is generally small.

It is worth noting that with the rapid development of the domestic LED market, more and more foreign companies have turned their attention to China, especially in recent years, the number of patent applications received by China in the LED field has increased significantly year by year. In addition, from the perspective of the distribution of the industry chain, foreign companies mainly have more patents in the chip and packaging fields, and half of the LED core inventions have filed patent applications in China.

Compared with foreign companies, China's LED patent applications are obviously at a disadvantage. According to a survey by the China National Engineering Research Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, as of the end of 2008, there were 26,071 applications for LED-related patents in China, of which nearly 50% were in the packaging and application of the middle and lower reaches of the industry.

In terms of profit structure, the profits of the mid-stream and downstream enterprises only account for about 25% of the entire industrial chain. Upstream chip and package manufacturing companies account for about 75% of the profits in the industry chain.

Lu Weiqiang, chairman of Guangzhou Shuaiyang Lighting Technology Co., Ltd., said in an interview with the media that the LED industry is not not making money. In the LED industry chain, the costly upstream epitaxial wafers and chip manufacturing are the highest profits, the domestic LED industry. The downturn is due to the lack of industry. The same industry, foreign companies mainly in the upper and middle reaches of the chip, packaging, the layout of the patent more, and the domestic LED industry chain, a large number of LED companies are the lack of core technology, the middle and lower reaches of the enterprise.

Tsinghua Tongfang Vice President Wang Lianghai also believes that because the core technology is still in the developed countries, talent and technology are still the shortest boards in the domestic upstream LED industry, and the downstream LED products are also hindered by high prices and vicious competition in the market. The application of the product is promoted.

It can be seen that how to change the industry's lack of core, get rid of low-level redundant construction, and have its own core technology in the industry is the crux of the LED industry in China.

Experts in the industry stated that domestic enterprises should refer to advanced foreign companies to develop a number of high value-added products through the improvement of technological innovation investment, R&D, transformation, and application mechanisms, and establish a technological innovation system that combines enterprises as the main body, market orientation, and the combination of production, study and research. , improve industry soft power.