In 2015, in response to the challenges of the energy crisis and the gradual deterioration of the environment, my country is also committed to strengthening the adjustment of industrial structure, promoting energy conservation and emission reduction, and transforming the development mode. With the rise of emerging applications such as the Internet of Things, the trend of intelligence has accelerated, providing a major opportunity for the development of the LED industry.

Global LED Lighting Application Market Segmentation

Driven by alternative light sources and the global incandescent lamp replacement boom, the global LED lighting market grew rapidly in 2014. However, in 2015, due to the sharp drop in the prices of alternative light source products (including lamps and bulbs), product profits were not as good as expected. The growth momentum of the LED lighting market is insufficient, and the growth of the LED lighting market has slowed down. In 2015, the global LED lighting market size was 25.7 billion US dollars. Compared with 2014, it increased by 44%, and the penetration rate of LED lighting market reached 31%. It is expected that the growth of the global LED lighting market will gradually stabilize from 2016 to 2018, some alternative light sources have been replaced, and the market growth rate has stabilized at around 20%. Lighting companies have begun to shift their focus to the professional lighting field, such as commercial lighting and engineering lighting. and architectural lighting.

The global LED industry shows the following development characteristics: First, the LED lighting application market is segmented. In the face of the trend of falling prices of LED lighting products, global LED companies are looking for segmented fields to make efforts, and key companies move to the value chain to strengthen industrial Innovative research and development in lighting, automotive lighting, plant lighting, intelligent lighting and other sub-fields, providing alternative lighting solutions for different application environments. For example, in 2015, the global LED industrial lighting market size will reach 2.366 billion US dollars, and it is expected to reach 3.935 billion US dollars in 2018, with a compound annual growth rate of 18.5%. In the industrial field, LED patio lights are a large proportion of lighting products. At present, key LED companies have entered this field, such as General Electric, Cree, Japan's Toshiba, Iwasaki Electric and so on.

Second, the growth rate of the high-brightness LED industry has slowed down. In the past few decades, different application markets have stabilized the annual compound growth rate of the high-brightness LED industry at 20% to 30%. However, in recent years, the growth rate of output value has declined significantly. In 2014, the output value of high-brightness LED was 14.2 billion US dollars, and the growth rate decreased from 19% in the previous year to 9%. In 2015, the output value increased only slightly, reaching 14.5 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 2%.

Third, the mergers and acquisitions of LED giants are surging. In 2015, key enterprises in the LED industry successively announced the sale or spin-off of the LED lighting business, which changed the industry pattern, and Philips was the leader of lighting companies. A series of split and reorganization plans began at the earliest. Last year, it announced the sale of an 80% stake in its lighting company Lumileds to Chinese capital GSRGO Scale Capital for $3.3 billion. But then it was rejected because it was not approved. Currently looking for a buyer again. This year, it reached an acquisition agreement with a US manufacturer of OLED light engines and panels. Philips is currently planning to spin off its lighting business and medical business.

As the leader of European lighting companies, Osram sold 13.47% of its shares in Foshan Lighting to Rising Group in 2015. At present, it is preparing to spin off and sell part of the light source business.

General Lighting, a traditional American lighting company, announced in 2015 that it would integrate its LED lighting business with its solar energy-related business and re-establish a new company Current, which gave its lighting business more independence and room for development.

Under the pressure of competition, American Cree also spun off the power device and radio frequency device business from the head office and established a branch company to reduce the low-profit lighting product business and enhance the competitiveness of its core business.

Japan's Panasonic Lighting is also making frequent moves. In 2014, it closed its Shanghai lighting factory and its Hangzhou factory. In the future, it will continue to close its fluorescent lamp factory in Indonesia and two factories in Japan to fully shrink its lighting business.

Japan's Toshiba announced its withdrawal from the white LED business in 2015 due to the fall in the yen exchange rate and business losses.

my country's LED industry penetrates into household lighting

In recent years, the market penetration rate of LED lighting has increased significantly, and it has been promoted and used in landscape lighting, road lighting, commercial lighting and other fields, and has accelerated its penetration into household lighting. In 2015, the overall scale of my country's semiconductor lighting industry was 396.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15%. Compared with the average annual growth rate of more than 30% in the past 10 years, the growth rate has dropped significantly.

From the perspective of import and export, from 2011 to 2014, the export growth rate of my country's overall lighting products remained at a relatively high level. In 2014, the total export value of lighting products was 41.5 billion US dollars, reaching the highest level in recent years, with a year-on-year increase of 16%. The export growth rate of lighting products remained above 10% in four years. Affected by the global economic environment, the export growth rate of my country's overall lighting products also declined in 2015. The total export volume of lighting products in the first three quarters was 33 billion US dollars, an increase of 8.5% over the same period in 2014. digits.

As a rapidly emerging category of products in the lighting industry, LED lighting products have experienced a rapid increase in product exports from 2011 to 2014. Driven by the global ban on incandescent lamps, China's LED lighting exports have maintained a relatively high level. In 2014, the total export volume was 9 billion US dollars, an increase of 50% year-on-year, and the growth rate for four consecutive years was above 60%. Since 2015, with the gradual increase in the penetration rate of LED lighting, the market demand has slowed down, and the export value of China's LED lighting products has also slowed down. In the first three quarters of 2015, the total export value was 8.4 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 20% in 2014, and the growth rate dropped significantly.

Diversified applications to expand industrial growth points

From the perspective of development opportunities, first, national policies such as the "Belt and Road" have created a favorable environment for industrial development. With the release of the national "One Belt, One Road" policy, it has opened up a new window of opportunity for countries along the route to complement each other's advantages and open up development, and has created a new platform for international cooperation. On the basis of satisfying the domestic market, my country's LED industry urgently needs to alleviate the structural overcapacity by expanding exports and international cooperation. Emerging countries and regional markets such as India, Russia, Africa, Southeast Asia, etc., with the support of national policies, economic development and industrial transformation and upgrading, the LED lighting market will be further opened. For example, the Indian government expects to bid 200 million LED bulbs in 2016, and has begun public bidding for street lamp replacement LED projects, which will further release the LED lighting market in India in 2016. The Southeast Asian market mainly includes six countries: Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. The market size and penetration rate of LED lighting have steadily increased. The introduction of the national "One Belt, One Road" policy has provided an important opportunity for LED companies to go abroad and created a good environment for industrial development.

Second, the diversification of application demands provides a new market entry point for industrial development. With the continuous emergence of a series of new application fields such as plant lighting, security defense, medical electronics, light source communication, and intelligent lighting, the application fields of LED products in my country are gradually expanding, providing an important entry point for industrial development. In the past two years, smart lighting has provided a market space of more than 60 billion yuan for my country's LED industry; application fields such as plant lighting and medical electronics have opened up the market for ultraviolet LEDs, and the market size of deep ultraviolet LEDs will exceed 6 billion in the next 3 to 4 years. Yuan; In 2015, the market size of infrared LEDs used in security defense, monitoring and other fields has grown to 120 million US dollars, and it is expected to continue to rise in the future.

Third, the trend of multi-technology integration creates important opportunities for industrial development. In the context of the development of the Internet of Things and the Industrial Internet, the integration of LED technology and communication, sensing and integrated circuit technology has become a major trend. IoT applications include smart homes, smart wearables, smart buildings, etc. Among them, smart lighting technology has become an important platform, and cross-border integration of enterprises has become the norm. Through cross-border interaction, the combination of lighting and light sources, as well as the combination of hardware technology and mobile Internet, provides a more energy-saving, efficient and comfortable lighting environment, and at the same time realizes intelligent control.

Improve the core competitiveness of the industrial chain

From the perspective of the challenges, one is that the core patents, technologies and standards are controlled by others. At present, the global LED product market and core patented technologies are basically monopolized by the five giants. Philips, Cree, Osram, Nichia, and Toyoda Gosei have reached a license agreement through cross-licensing to form an LED technology patent pool to consolidate their position in the industry. Problems such as weak enterprise patent awareness and lack of core patents will become a major obstacle to the development and growth of Chinese enterprises and import and export trade.

Second, the market lacks competitiveness. At present, most domestic enterprises have mastered low-power LED chip technology, but they lack competitiveness in high-end fields such as high-power and special application chips. For example, my country's market share in high-end high-power lighting chips is relatively low, with 80% relying on imports; high-end chips such as automotive lighting are basically completely dependent on imports, and there are still a few companies that can mass-produce them.

Based on this, two suggestions for industrial development are put forward: First, strengthen the benign interaction of the industrial chain and promote the innovation of independent core technologies. By guiding upstream and downstream enterprises to jointly tackle key problems, product coordination is achieved. Focusing on the new requirements for upstream chip technology and mid-stream packaging technology in emerging application fields such as downstream plant lighting, automotive lighting, and smart lighting, through various channels, strengthen guidance and centralized support for upstream and downstream key enterprises in the industry chain to carry out strategic cooperation and joint efforts. Tackling key problems to achieve concentrated breakthroughs in key common technologies and coordinated development of products. Focus on promoting key technological innovations, such as silicon-based LED technology with independent intellectual property rights, homoepitaxial technology, patterned substrate technology, MOCVD equipment, etc., to enhance the core competitiveness of the industry chain.

The third is to promote the formulation of industry standards and improve the testing system to increase patent awareness. Improve the comprehensive standardization technology system of LED. Prioritize the formulation of standards that are urgently needed for industrial development and mature in conditions, carry out the revision and formulation of basic standards, component standards and system evaluation standards for LED systems in stages and in a focused manner, and ensure the promotion and implementation of standards. Relying on national and local quality supervision and inspection centers, strengthen market regulation and supervision. At the same time, relying on industry authorities and associations and other institutions, build a public service platform for LED intellectual property, explore the establishment of an intellectual property early warning mechanism and a patent sharing mechanism, and establish and improve a patent pool.