We recently visited the 2010 China (Shanghai) International LED Indoor Lighting Exhibition and the 4th (Shanghai) International Street Lighting, Garden Lighting and Outdoor Lighting Exhibition. The scale of the exhibition is relatively small, mainly small and medium-sized LED lighting manufacturers, and the larger manufacturers are only BYD and Qinqin. Although the product may not be the most advanced in the industry, we still see the entire industry booming. Through the visit to more than 10 LED lamp manufacturers, parts manufacturers and competitors high pressure gas lamp manufacturers, we are optimistic about the application prospects of LED in the lighting industry.
Lighting products are more mature
The LED lighting products of various manufacturers are relatively mature and have various applications ranging from high-power outdoor street lamps, landscape decorative lamps and high ceiling indoor lamps, to lower-power desk lamp bulbs, cabinet lamps, and fluorescent lamps. The exhibits are also dominated by relatively high-end white lights. The brightness of the product also reached a relatively high level, the vast majority in 70-90lm/w.
The product design is diversified, the multi-chip package has a smaller ghost, and the single-chip array can be made into various shapes. In terms of heat dissipation, we have also seen various solutions. Many manufacturers adhere the chip to a metal lamp shade and use the lamp shade as a heat dissipation tool. Some manufacturers make the lampshade a grid or sheet that can be easily dissipated, and some claim to add rare earth elements to the copper lamp shade to greatly increase the heat dissipation coefficient.
Price barriers are expected to be alleviated to some extent
100W lamps for outdoor or high ceiling rooms are priced at RMB 2,500-4,500, while 3-5W lamps for indoor general lighting are priced at RMB 50-100. The price of LED light sources is still much higher than that of fluorescent lamps, but it can already be accepted by some consumers. We understand that a company sold more than 100 100-yuan light bulbs within two days of the show. Some dealers believe that if the price can be reduced by 20%-30% on the basis of the current, it will greatly enhance the product's appeal to ordinary consumers. We believe that with the completion of the expansion of the capacity of chip manufacturers, the price of LED lighting products can drop by 20%-30% within one year.
Misunderstandings about life will be overcome
At present, most LED light sources have a lifetime of about 20,000 to 30,000 hours, but some people on the market think too optimistically that the service life of LEDs can reach theoretical values ​​of 50,000 or even 100,000 hours. Others have a long life for LEDs. Overly pessimistic estimate.
Power supply is a bottleneck restricting the lifespan of many LED lamps. Normally, the power supply can only be used for 1-2 years (service life is less than 10,000 hours) and shorter than the life of the LED light source. For some ordinary consumers, replacing the entire lamp is more effective than replacing the power supply. Simple, so that these consumers mistakenly consider the service life of the power supply as the lifespan of the LED light source. The industry lacks uniform standards. Some manufacturers have low product quality, fast light decay, and short life span, which affects the overall image of the industry, such as certain in Beijing. The area-installed street lights experienced serious light failures after 8 months, and their brightness dropped significantly.
In practical applications, even people in the industry are still accumulating experience. Everyone usually thinks that LED lamps have high heat dissipation requirements and are more suitable for use in cold regions. However, the lamps installed by some manufacturers in the northeast have encountered serious problems in the winter than in the south. The temperature of the LED lamp shades is high. When the snow is relatively small, the snow falling on the lamp shades is easily converted into water, and then evaporates, but when the snow falls When it is very big, snow can easily accumulate on the lampshade, form ice, and form an air layer between the ice and the lampshade, which seriously affects the heat dissipation function of the lampshade. In addition, due to the design of the design, some manufacturers of street lamp shades are easy to fall into dust, especially in areas where sand and dust is relatively serious, thus affecting heat dissipation and reducing the life of LED light sources. We believe that with the promotion of LED applications and the increase of related personnel experience, these problems will be solved to overcome some people's misconceptions about LEDs.
LED industry chain will benefit from lighting applications
Contrary to market expectations, Taiwanese manufacturers attach great importance to the lighting market in mainland China. Nanjing Huading, a subsidiary of Guangding, has displayed strip lights and 3W/1W cabinet lights; chip maker Jingyuan Optoelectronics is well-known among lighting manufacturers. It is a major supplier of a number of lighting manufacturers with packaging capabilities; some companies also dispatch technicians to support their mainland partners.
Some lighting manufacturers are still relatively unfamiliar with domestically produced chips. They believe that imported chips have greater advantages in quality and performance. We believe that leading domestic chips and packaging products have basically reached the requirements for lighting use. With the advancement of technology and the further improvement of domestic product quality, the popularity of domestic chips and packaging manufacturers will be improved.
Due to the tight supply of LED chips, we did not see the trend of falling chip prices, which hindered the large-scale application of LED in the lighting industry. In the market, some people are concerned that the expansion of existing chip manufacturers will result in excess capacity, so they are not optimistic about the LED industry. We believe that the current production capacity of raw materials and chips has lagged behind demand. This bottleneck has caused chip prices to remain high and has constrained the scale of the entire industry. Only when the capacity of the chip manufacturers has been expanded, the existing demand can be met. Only when the capacity is further expanded, the chip prices are expected to decline, and the demand can be further increased. The LED industry can be further scaled up, and the cost can be further reduced, thereby making the entire The industry has entered the track of healthy development.
We are optimistic about the application prospects of LED in the lighting industry. With the expansion of the scale of chip production and the drop in prices, LED lamps will enter the ordinary consumer households within 2-3 years. We give the LED industry an "overweight" rating, suggesting that we focus on the packaging company National Star.