Lighting Industry "Illuminates" New Growth Space

Industry insiders say that with a series of policies and measures aimed at stabilizing the economy, expanding domestic demand, and promoting consumption gradually becoming more effective, even under pressure from the foreign trade environment, the overall economic operation of the lighting industry continues to improve. New sectors such as intelligent lighting and low-carbon environmental protection are growing significantly, and high-quality development has become an important direction for future competition in the industry.

Revitalization of the Lighting Industry

"The overall situation this year is good, and the recovery of tourism has driven the hotel industry. Our sales of customized lighting fixtures have grown significantly." Tu Junming, Sales Director of Zhongshan Meianju Lighting Co., Ltd., has been busy shuttling through various cities since the beginning of the year, negotiating business and participating in exhibitions have become a normal work routine.

Last year at this time, due to various factors such as the epidemic, the lighting industry, including the ancient town, suffered a blow and faced a severe test. Several industry insiders have stated that since the beginning of this year, the lighting industry has regained vitality, and the resumption of multiple domestic and foreign industry exhibitions has released positive signals. New application forms in segmented markets are constantly emerging, and the industry is facing a new round of competition.

According to the Chinese enterprise database, as of March 10, 2023, there are a total of 10100 major enterprises in the LED lighting industry in Guangdong Province, of which Zhongshan City has 7767 enterprises.

In Zhongshan, Guangdong, the 29th China Ancient Town International Lighting Expo has just come to an end. This exhibition has attracted over 70000 visitors for procurement, including over 4000 overseas buyers from 130 countries and regions around the world, setting a new record for the exhibition. At the opening ceremony of the exhibition, 14 lighting related projects were signed, including industrial projects with a fixed investment of over 1 billion yuan and an estimated annual output value of about 2.5 billion yuan.

"The popularity of this year's exhibition has significantly increased, and we have reached two new signing intentions. Next, we plan to visit a batch of factories." Indian lighting purchaser Pratik Bandari told reporters that lighting products from China have new designs and good quality, and are widely popular in the Indian market.

The exhibition boom is a microcosm of industry recovery. The reporter observed on site that there was a continuous flow of people at the exhibition, and batches of lighting purchasers, distributors, engineering procurement, design institutions, and consumers from all over the world spontaneously or in groups visited the site, creating a strong atmosphere for negotiations.

According to Li Jianyu, the sales manager of Zhongshan Chengyuan Optoelectronic Technology Co., Ltd., the company's products are mainly sold to the Middle East region. The current business has recovered by about 70-80% compared to the epidemic period. Based on the judgment of the industry situation, the company continues to expand its workforce and prepare for new products to seize the market.

"The cold winter in the industry has passed," said Cao Lihui, a member of the Zhongshan Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. As an important component of the home furnishings industry, the country's expansion of consumption strategy, coupled with the upgrading needs of the masses' consumption, has brought new growth opportunities to the lighting industry. "Consumers' emphasis on a healthy lighting environment, personalized soft furnishings, and requirements for smart energy conservation will all bring new opportunities to the industry."

Intelligent lighting and low-carbon environmental protection drive industrial upgrading

"The industry boom has intensified competition, and only by constantly updating products can we keep up with the market." Li Yangsheng, the person in charge of Songning Lighting Electrical Appliance Factory in Xiaolan Town, Zhongshan, has been engaged in the lighting industry for more than 20 years. He told reporters that the lighting industry is highly competitive, with product lifecycles ranging from 3 months to less than a year. Rapid iteration and continuous promotion of new products are the norm in the industry.

In the fierce competition, new forms of light applications are emerging in the lighting sub market. Since the beginning of this year, cutting-edge innovations such as intelligent lighting and low-carbon environmental protection have emerged, becoming industry growth points.

Tap your phone to light up the entire house. The LED lighting industry has embarked on a wave of intelligent transformation and upgrading, and smart lighting has become a new blue ocean. Lighting companies have launched intelligent lighting products one after another, upgrading traditional lighting fixtures to cloud intelligent lighting fixtures through chip implantation, driver replacement, Bluetooth, voice, switch, APP and other methods, and gradually transitioning from product suppliers to comprehensive solution service providers.

"We have launched intelligent LED lights for parking lots, which are debugging free and connected independently. They are also equipped with radar sensing, air purification and other functions, and have been favored and praised by buyers," said Zhang Ke, Business Manager of Qili Optoelectronic Technology Co., Ltd.

Industry insiders point out that the key to intelligent transformation lies in three chips - sensing chips, transmission chips, and computing chips. LED lighting companies achieve full spectrum, strong stability, and high quality to adapt to different lighting scenarios through in-depth research on consumer demand and lighting application scenarios, becoming a new trend in the industry.

"Low carbon+lighting" has also become a new trend in the industry. With the promotion of "carbon neutrality" and "carbon peak", many lighting enterprises that integrate new energy technologies are developing strongly. High energy efficiency and high-power LED technology, as well as intelligent energy regulation technology, have brought about industry changes, and new energy lighting products have become new growth points.

Li Jianyu introduced that the company has developed and launched a series of solar COB light source products, which integrate new energy photovoltaic technology and have highlights such as uninterrupted power supply in rainy and cloudy days, automatic energy storage and zero electricity bills, which are quite popular in the market. "Being driven by the market, one can only be forced to 'roll up prices' and invest in technological research and development to achieve differentiation."

Moving towards a new stage of high-quality development

"With the gradual manifestation of a series of national policies and measures to stabilize the economy, expand domestic demand, and promote consumption, the lighting industry continues to build new engines of intelligent, healthy, and green development, and the industry's economic operation continues to recover and improve." said He Ye, Vice President of the China Light Industry Federation and Chairman of the China Lighting Electrical Appliances Association.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to August, large-scale enterprises in the lighting industry achieved a revenue of 235.79 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 1.4%, and exports of 37.3 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of about 7%. However, they achieved a profit of 11.85 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.7%, and the profit situation improved. "The data reflects the strong development resilience of the lighting industry and has accumulated new development momentum for the industry to achieve transformation and upgrading," said He Ye.

Industry insiders predict that the lighting industry is recovering and will enter a new round of competition, facing significant transformation, upgrading, and integration innovation challenges as a whole. During the period of transformation, new commercial formats such as industrial upgrading, industrial finance, big data-driven, and industrial chain reshaping are worth paying attention to, and "high-quality development" will become the keyword of this round of competition.

"The recovery pace and intensity of the lighting industry vary in different markets and fields, resulting in thousands of enterprises and diverse expectations." Cao Lihui said that with the development of digitalization and intelligent technology, multi scene intelligent lighting will replace LED lighting with a single lighting function. In this stage, enterprises should focus on technological innovation, strengthen digital transformation, enhance the supply capacity of high-quality products, cultivate key sub sectors, and consolidate industry competitiveness.

Industry insiders point out that the overall operation of the LED lighting industry still faces problems such as small individual scale, low industry concentration, and serious product homogenization. The number and production capacity of high-end lighting design and intelligent lighting application systems in the industry still need to be improved, and there is still significant room for traditional enterprises to promote intelligent transformation.

As an industrial gathering place, Zhongshan Ancient Town has implemented the "100 million yuan enterprise settlement" plan and the "gathering stars to create a month" project, and has issued the "Special Support and Reward Measures for Further Promoting High quality Economic Development in Ancient Town (Revised in 2022)" to provide comprehensive policy support for lighting enterprises in terms of scale listing, research and development funds, high-level talents, scientific and technological projects, and guide industrial transformation and upgrading.