With the continuous advancement of the "blank ban" policy, as a substitute for traditional incandescent lamps, LED filament lamps have become popular in foreign markets. At the same time, due to the decline in the cost of filament lamps, its domestic market has also begun to increase in volume.
According to a survey by authoritative organizations, the global demand for LED filament lamps exceeded 500 million in 2015, and will increase rapidly at a rate of more than 35% each year. Once all incandescent lamps with more than 15 watts are stopped from production and sales from October 1, 2016, the market demand for LED filament lamps will continue to increase.
At the same time, the market competition for LED filament lamps is becoming increasingly fierce. In 2013, there were no more than 5 LED filament lamp manufacturers nationwide. By October 2014, the number of enterprises in the filament lamp field nationwide had climbed to more than 200. As of now, this number has reached more than 600.
"This year, the market has been severely differentiated at the two levels, and orders are concentrated in large-scale manufacturers such as Yapuer, Yaming and Baishi. Small traders may pay attention to price choices, but large customers pay more attention to quality and stability." Wang Peng, general manager of Baishi Optoelectronics, said that in the future, the total number of LED filament lamps will increase rapidly, and fewer participants will be. As the production capacity, automation and cost advantages of more than 200,000 filament lamp factories become more and more obvious, filament lamps will eventually form a market competition pattern of less than 10 filament lamps.
major factories accelerated mass production
According to research, domestic incandescent lamp manufacturing companies, LED lighting factories or packaging companies such as Fozhao, Yaming, Shen'an, Yapuer, Hongli, Zhongzhou, Hangke, Lehman, Mulinsen, Baishi, Hengxing Gaohong, Yuanlei Technology, etc. have entered the field of LED filament lamps and added a large number of production.
Among them, Boshi Optoelectronics, Yapuer and Yuanlei Technology are at the forefront of the industry in mass production of LED filament lamps. Yapuer shipments reached 1 million in January this year, and is expected to reach about 5 million per month by the end of next year.
Since June last year, Baishi Optoelectronics and Tianxing Lighting, the largest incandescent lamp manufacturer in the southwest, announced their cooperation to expand the LED filament lamp market. In August, the trial production of the new "fifth generation filament LED lighting lamp" developed by Boshi Optoelectronics was successfully carried out and put into mass production. Currently, the company's monthly production capacity of filament lamps reaches 800,000 to 900,000. Li Jueming, general manager of Baishi Optoelectronics Technology Quality Center, reported that the company's LED filament lamp has obtained more than 20 patents for appearance utility models and 9 invention patents from the State Intellectual Property Office.
, Yuanlei Technology has used LED filament lamps as one of the company's main products since last year, with monthly shipments reaching 3 million to 4 million. According to Li Yuanlong, the company's sales director, in order to improve the high manufacturing cost problems caused by its low production yield, Yuanlei Technology independently developed the phosphor molding process.
LED filament lamp production requires combining the packaging system with the sealing and wiring, and it needs to cross the two core technical thresholds of glass bubble sealing, inflation technology and filament spot welding technology. Previously, filament spot welding was mainly done manually, resulting in extremely low automation efficiency and also limiting the development of LED filament lamps. Now, due to the follow-up of automation equipment and the continuous maturity of technology, the degree of automation and yield have been greatly improved. Wang Zhigen, chairman of
Star Lighting, said: "At the end of last year, our automated spot welding and sealing equipment had been wired one after another, and each line can achieve the production capacity of 15,000 LED filament lamps, with a yield of more than 92%. In 2015, we achieved a monthly production capacity of 1 million units, and the annual output value of LED filament lamps is expected to exceed 100 million yuan."
Wang Peng believes that in the past, the filament lamp core seat could hardly achieve automatic spot welding. Even if it was implemented, it could only be used on two filament products, which also led to extremely low automation. Now, the mainstream filament lamps with two filaments and four filaments have been automatically spot welding, but filament lamps with more than four filaments still need manual spot welding. Due to the introduction of automation equipment, the yield of filament lamps has increased from 75% to more than 90%.
At the same time, special equipment for filament lamps appeared on the market, such as filament lamp cutting, welding, drying, dispensing and other equipment, which were put on the market.
Among them, Delong Laser launched a "Filament Support High-speed Laser Cutting Equipment" specially designed for sapphire and glass substrate cutting.Zhao Yuxing, chairman of the company, said that the adjustable cutting speed of this equipment is 250-800mm/S, which is far exceeding the average speed of the industry's sapphire substrate cutting equipment, which is of great benefit to improving the production efficiency of filament lamps and reducing costs.
is a coincidence. Tengsheng Guard Control, which focuses on dispensing equipment, has also launched the FAD7100, the fully automatic dispensing machine of LED filament lamp. Its deputy general manager Lu Ning said that this device can achieve fully automatic loading and unloading, and one person can operate multiple devices at the same time. In addition, it can realize automatic CCD positioning and needle position correction to ensure that the filament product dispensing achieves the best effect.
market differentiates in adjustment
At present, LED filament lamp manufacturers are mainly exported, concentrated in several major markets such as Europe, Japan and the United States. All of Boshi's LED filament lamp products are sold overseas. Yan Lei, deputy general manager of sales of Yuanlei Technology, said, "If the domestic market increases in volume, it depends on the unit price. If the unit price cannot be lowered, the speed of volume will slow down." The high price of
hinders the development of LED filament lamps in the domestic market. Since the fourth quarter of 2014, a large number of manufacturers have entered. At this stage, the price decline has accelerated. Some manufacturers of 3.6W-4W LED filament lamps have quoted 10 yuan or even lower prices, but the average market price is still 15-16 yuan. Some brands of filament lamps even reach more than 30 yuan, which is twice as expensive than LED ball lamps, and the product quality is uneven.
Wang Peng told reporters that the export price of 3W LED filament lamps of mainstream manufacturers is generally US$2.2-2.5 per piece. But searching Alibaba Wholesale Mall found that the price of 3.6-4W LED filament lamps ranged from 9.9-30 yuan/just, and the price difference was huge.
"The prices are different and the quality is different. Although each product can be lit, the time and effect of lighting are different." A practitioner said that it is not difficult to get started with LED filament lamp products, but it takes time to consider the product to achieve a certain degree of stability. Although there are great problems with the quality of many LED filament lamps on the market now, they often grab orders through price competition.
This also forces some manufacturers to fall into a dilemma. "If you join the 'price-killing ranks', the product quality cannot be guaranteed; if you don't join, you will lose some orders." Another businessman said that despite the dilemma, you still have to make a choice. "We can only give up some orders that are very price-sensitive." Lin Feng, director of R&D of
, said that in the future, LED filament lamps will develop in two directions, one is the route to make high-end products, and the other is the route to make civilian products. If you make high-end products, the gross profit margin will be higher, but the quantity will inevitably be less. If you do it alone, some gross profit will be sacrificed, but the quantity is very large.
At the same time, Dai Jian, chairman of Yapuer Lighting, also said that the price war is fierce in the market, the company has adjusted its strategy, and the products are developing towards the polar regions: high-end ones will make the best quality, and low-end ones will make the price as low as possible.
"In the first half of 2015, the growth rate of LED filament lamp market slowed down, the supply and demand relationship began to change, and more and more manufacturers supply filament lamps, while demand is growing slowly. Many manufacturers will sacrifice quality to obtain orders under the urgency, which will make customers who dare to try filament lamps lose confidence in this product." Wang Peng believes that at this stage, small manufacturers with small scale and poor quality will gradually withdraw from the market, and production capacity will be further concentrated in large manufacturers.
Currently, filament lamp products are mainly exported and sold to the European and American markets. Customers are divided into three types: one is importer, the second is brand owner, and the third is channel merchant. Among them, importer companies are often very small, just a few people, with average financial situation and weak operating capabilities, but they are the group with the widest number of people in the foreign trade field.
As the market becomes transparent, the living space of importers will become smaller and smaller. In the future, the purchasing entity of filament lamp orders will evolve into brand owners, and their purchasing behavior will be more rational, and they will pay more attention to the comprehensive advantages brought by many factors such as product, delivery, scale, quality, and cost, rather than simply quick response and low prices. At that time, factories with a certain scale and quality accumulation will gain more market share, and some speculative small enterprises will gradually withdraw from the competition in the LED filament lamp market.
The next step will continue to reduce costs
More than industry insiders said that the future market for filament lamps is not a problem, orders are not a problem, and even the life of filament lamps to revolutionize traditional LEDs is not a problem, but the high cost of LED filament lamps is the biggest problem. How to reduce costs through large-scale production and become a good product that consumers truly feel at ease and accept is the biggest promotion bottleneck of LED filament lamps.
"From the appearance to the public's acceptance, a product must go through several steps such as appearance, quality, and cost. The first stage is whether it can attract consumers. The focus of the second stage is safety regulations and certification. The third stage is scale, that is, whether the price can be accepted by the public. At this stage, LED filament lamps are in the third stage." Wang Peng said that reducing costs is the core focus in 2015. How to ensure that quality does not fail in the process of gradually reducing costs is a problem that all practitioners need to face together.
"Only when the filament lamp is cheaper, it is the most promising time. Therefore, how to make low-cost and quality-assured filament lamps to achieve cost-effectiveness that is generally accepted by the market." Zhang Xianjun, chief engineer of Zhejiang Yingluohua Electronics Co., Ltd., believes that automated production is an inevitable choice to ensure quality, improve efficiency and increase output, and it is also a must-have way to reduce costs. The standardization of filament specifications in the future is a strong guarantee for the entire filament lamp to effectively implement full-process automation as soon as possible.
If you want to expand the LED filament lamp market and implement large-scale production, enterprises also need to work hard on the automated production of filament lamps, because the strength of the ability to have automated production equipment determines the cost and quality of the product.
Source: Guangdong LED, the purpose of reprinting is to convey more information, which does not mean that the think tank agrees with its views and is responsible for authenticity. If you need more resources and industry communication, please add ThinkKujun WeChat (643825881)
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