Cao Zhen
CHINA S light-emitting diode (LED) lighting firms should not rely so heavily on government sourcing, but on technology innovation and self branding to boost the energy-saving sector s long-term development, insiders agreed at an annual exhibition in Shenzhen over the weekend.
Domestic LED lighting companies should face the market, not mayors, Chen Yansheng, director-general of China Lighting Device Association, told the media Saturday at the Seventh China Solid State Lighting Exhibition in the Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center.
In past years, central and local governments have spent a lot in pushing for the use of LED lighting on city roads, tunnels and subways to conserve energy. This has bolstered the domestic LED lighting industry, but for the next few years, the sector s focus should be shifted from outdoor to indoor use and how to encourage consumers to accept the expensive but energy-saving lighting will be a big challenge for manufacturers, Chen said.
The three-day exhibition, closing Saturday, is the most influential in China s LED lighting sector. It attracted more than 200 domestic and international firms, including Philips, Osram and GE.
The foreign players said national and industry standards are expected to regulate the Chinese LED market which is full of enterprises with uneven capacity and products with inferior quality.
Lin Liangqi, chief executive officer of Philips Lighting Greater China, said that in boosting China s LED sector, governments should not only focus on capital injection, but need to set standards to ensure that products will have high quality with performance specified uniformly for commerce and trade.
He said the Dutch company focuses on providing a complete solution for clients. It s not about selling a bulb, but a whole lighting solution, which includes light quality, visual feeling, decoration and cost-saving.
LED lighting is expected to be twice as energy efficient as fluorescent lamps and 10 times more efficient than incandescent lamps. Although China has strength in the LED industry, most of the firms engage in original equipment manufacturing.
Lighting is different from consumer electronics in sales channels, which means companies need to adopt a different marketing strategy for different buyers, including individuals, designers and construction firms, said an exhibitor from the Hong Kong-listed NVC Lighting Technology Corp. in Huizhou, Guangdong. With the trend of yuan appreciation, there would be more barriers for domestic companies, he said.
Shenzhen, home to a quarter of China s LED lighting companies, has more than 1,000 firms engaged in manufacture. The city s LED lighting industry output exceeded 24.5 billion yuan (US$3.66 billion) last year, 35 percent higher than a year earlier and accounted for one third of the country s total. With an annually injection of 100 million yuan from the city government, Shenzhen is expected to yield 130 billion yuan in LED output by 2015.
