In recent years, the domestic lighting industry has experienced rapid development, and the number of manufacturers in the upstream and downstream of the industry chain has continued to expand. As a new force in the lighting industry, LED lighting is expected to become the future leader of the industry. The domestic market acceptance has increased significantly, accelerating the penetration of the LED lighting market into commercial lighting, public lighting and other markets. On the other hand, six ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Plan" in February this year, and the government gradually promoted LED lighting products with mature application technology and obvious energy-saving effects.
According to LEDinside’s estimates, China’s LED general lighting demand will reach US$10 billion in 2015. With continued economic growth and increasing LED penetration, China’s LED general lighting demand will reach US$22 billion by 2020.
Vanke CEO Chen Nian said, I never know what will happen to the Internet tomorrow. Jiang Kangqi, director of Hongyan’s strategic brand department, also pointed out that in the future, companies will not be able to rely on one business model to survive. With the Internet's comprehensive penetration into production and life, domestic LED lighting companies are experiencing passive or active transformation. The LED lighting industry, which is in a period of channel and brand competition, is gradually converging with Internet e-commerce and smart homes, embarking on a new transformation path.
Re-recognizing e-commerce as a booster of flat management
According to statistics, the total sales of LED lighting products on this year’s “Double 11” day reached 450 million yuan, an increase of nearly 40% compared to last year. Taking Opple as an example, it completed a pre-sale amount of 25 million yuan on the eve of "Double 11", and the total transaction amount exceeded 94 million yuan.
The success of Double Eleven has undoubtedly given a boost to the e-commerce transformation of lighting companies. Industry insiders said: E-commerce logistics is gradually covering wider fourth- and fifth-tier cities and towns, and consumer demand in rural markets continues to be released. Therefore, with the help of e-commerce, the LED lighting market will expand several times. These remote areas may have more leading consumption advantages than first- and second-tier cities because of the late-mover advantage. And the more emerging a market is, the easier it is to accept new products.
Deng Zhengping, director of JD Cloud Platform, explained: Why e-commerce has developed rapidly and can continue to grow rapidly. Because it connects platforms, merchants and users. The Internet can interact directly with consumers. Instead of knowing the various data through the company's semi-annual report. The evaluation system and sales increases and decreases can be followed up in real time to quickly improve products and respond. The Internet has changed the sales model, and lighting companies must take advantage of the trend.
Lin Jiliang, general manager of Mulinsen Lighting Marketing Center, emphasized that during Double Eleven, e-commerce retail is only a part of e-commerce and not the whole picture. E-commerce is only one part of marketing. Companies should emphasize how to use this emerging platform to optimize the supply chain and upstream and downstream systems, make relevant links more standardized, and ensure smooth communication of complete information from point to point. Lighting is actually a traditional industry that requires complex business model operations. In addition to civilian retail, 70% of the market is realized through engineering. The industrial chain formats of LED lighting and TVs, refrigerators, and mobile phones are different, and the channels are also different. To truly establish a brand, offline channels are still needed, and 020 is inseparable. And to provide professional lighting solutions, brands need to have certain capabilities in various fields. The model cannot change the business format. The supply chain is the value chain, and corresponding products must be provided to obtain added value.
Li Jiansheng, chairman of CDH Technology, expressed this view more clearly: removing intermediate channels and flattening management to reduce costs is the meaning of e-commerce. To shorten the sales and communication links, e-commerce is a management tool and a part of marketing.
Intelligence expands territory for LED lighting
LED has laid the technical foundation for the intelligent development of lighting. Not only international lighting giants such as Philips and GE are rushing to launch smart bulbs, but also Internet companies such as Xiaomi and JD.com have begun to deploy LED smart lighting. While many outsiders are waiting for the opportunity to seize the dividends that the LED lighting industry may bring in the future, LED lighting companies themselves are also expanding their territory in intelligent layout, not only the entire smart lighting, but also hoping to use lighting as an entrance to integrate smart home control.
Li Zhijun, general manager of Yaming Lighting, pointed out: The company invested in smart lighting in 2012 and introduced an international team to develop smart lighting hardware and software. Think about how lighting can be turned into "connected" lighting. After the realization of interconnected lighting, whether it is smart homes or smart cities, services and functions other than lighting can be provided, which can expand the entire lighting business tenfold. And this tenfold comes from lighting’s new cross-border products and service solutions. For example, this year Yaming tried to connect the entire street lights and community lighting into a network in Shanghai, linking information release, charging management, community security, and smart transportation, and providing many value-added services.
Wang Micheng, president of Hongyan Electrical Appliances, said frankly that there are currently many smart lighting products in the market. There are low-end and high-end. Dimming and tuning can only be said to be a rudimentary smart lighting product. The smart lighting that Hongyan understands is based on the smart home platform and is a branch of the smart home system. Smart lighting can control home appliances through smart lamps.
Li Jiansheng, chairman of CDH Technology, reminded consumers that the original intention of smart lighting is to make life more convenient. The so-called intelligence means that these devices can be thought of and used by people. Too much reliance on mobile phones and overly cumbersome operation procedures is pseudo-intelligence.
Some people in the industry pointed out: At present, wireless protocols such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth low energy, Zigbee or Z-wave are available for smart lighting, which is difficult to unify. In this regard, JD Cloud Platform Director Deng Zhengping said that in the future, each platform provider will also launch other solutions to be compatible with other protocols. At this stage, using Wi-Fi connection has the most advantage in terms of universality for users. When smart products are connected, the technical threshold required by users is also low.
Research data from relevant institutions show that the current penetration rate of intelligent LED lighting in the mainland market is less than 2%, and product applications are mainly reflected in dimmable LED landscape lights, adjustable color temperature LED street lights and monitoring. Intelligent lighting has different control platforms, control protocols, and light source product specifications. As a result, each company can only take care of itself, making it difficult to form an industrial chain. This is also an inevitable obstacle in the development of the industry at this stage. Some insiders said, "For current companies in the lighting industry, more should insist on making their main business bigger and stronger. After all, the lighting market has a huge space. Only if you do well in this space can you have the strength to go into the second field."
ANNA