How LED can avoid repeating the PV industry

Photovoltaics, an industry that was once seen as promising, fell into a state of immense losses in a short period of time. In the same LED industry as a strategic emerging industry, in the face of sluggish market conditions, there has been continuous rumbling of doubts about whether the LED industry will follow the photovoltaic industry and become the second photovoltaic industry.

In 2012, the United States' "double opposition" and European anti-dumping attacks followed the attack on China's photovoltaic industry. The Chinese PV industry is facing a severe crisis of survival. Although the LED industry has not been subject to anti-dumping investigations, the situation after experiencing the European debt crisis has been quite similar to the PV industry's predicament. What they are currently facing is how to survive. The decline of the photovoltaic industry can be said to be the best example of the LED industry. It is precisely because the LED industry seems to be telling a similar story, so many companies are calling on LED companies to take every step and avoid the old path of PV.

Judging from the problems caused by this incident in the photovoltaic industry, most of them are similar to the current situation in the LED industry:

LED quality is more worrying than overcapacity

The vast market prospects of LED have caused great temptation to the outside world, which has led many companies to blindly catch food and cause serious overcapacity. However, due to the European debt crisis, the overall LED market demand is exhausted. Facing the fierce competition in the market and the pressure brought by rising raw material costs, most “crabs” have not only tasted the sweetness, but have become the pioneers in the race for the road. In order to survive, some companies do not hesitate to sacrifice their quality at the expense of price competition. There are even some companies that use imitation products or poor quality raw materials in order to dump at a low price, resulting in a significant reduction in the quality of LED lighting products. This blind entry and low-end competition have led to a chaotic and difficult-to-manage LED lighting market. Some time ago, the Bureau of Quality Supervision, the State Administration of Seismology, and the Bureau of Industry and Commerce all conducted quality inspections of LED lighting products, energy-saving lamps, road lighting, fire emergency lighting, and electric light sources throughout the country. The results showed that the LED lighting product pass rate was only 51%, and the inferior quality situation was worrying.

Compared to worrying about overcapacity, enterprises should pay more attention to the improvement of LED industry quality and independent innovation capability, and how to significantly reduce costs. With the pressure of international companies and the price disorder, LED companies have to rely on improving product quality, owning independent intellectual property rights, and reducing costs in order to achieve breakthroughs and overcome difficulties.

Do not over-rely on policy and ignore core technologies

At present, for the winter of photovoltaic industry, the country is brewing a number of policies to support the photovoltaic industry, and consider investing 70 billion yuan to save. Faced with this unprecedented crisis and unprecedented unprecedented government rescue, industry insiders have called for PV companies to “give effort” to themselves. They need to optimize their own industrial structure, increase the flexibility of their competition mechanisms, continue to expand market demand, and enhance their R&D capabilities. Other aspects of practicing internal strength.

Compared with the substantial policy subsidies in the photovoltaic industry, the LED industry also benefits from favorable policies. In the first half of this year, the State Council Executive Meeting discussed and adopted the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” of the National Basic Public Service System, which quantified the policy support for energy-saving lamps and LED lamps, and provided 2.2 billion yuan in subsidy funds to support them. All provinces and cities have also successively introduced policies and actively responded to the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" to support the LED industry in disguised form. It can be said that the government subsidy is a "double benefit sword", while promoting the development of the LED market, but it also hindered the company's "independence." Most LED companies neglected the technological innovation and R&D because of over-reliance on the policy. When the international giants pressed their products, due to the constraints of LED patents, many LED companies were hit and frustrated.

At present, more than half of the technologies and patents in the global LED industry are occupied by international companies. Nichia Chemical, Toyota Synthetic, Cree, Philips Europe, and European Osram have applied for a number of patents to maintain their competitive advantage and maintain their market share, covering almost the entire industrial chain including raw materials, equipment, packaging, and applications. Obviously, the monopoly of industrial giants' patents has seriously hindered the development of Chinese LED companies.

Effectively train LED technology talents to “clean up” obstacles for industrial development

LED is an emerging high-tech industry. Government support and rich companies cannot solve all problems. As far as the industry as a whole is concerned, the lack of core technologies and R&D teams is the biggest gap between mainland LED companies and similar foreign companies, and it is also high-end. The main reason for the wide gap between product and technology innovation capabilities. Therefore, LED companies not only need to have a team with both ability and integrity, but more importantly, it is necessary to form an effective talent training blood-making mechanism.

At present, due to the lack of upstream core technology in the LED industry, many LED companies are engaged in low-end areas such as packaging and applications. LED materials with high luminous efficiency and high reliability are almost all dependent on imports. The core technology of high-grade epitaxial wafer production processes is also subject to control, especially Most of the upstream chip patent technologies are mastered by major foreign manufacturers. With the rise of LED patent war smoke, the lack of core technical personnel has become a bottleneck for the development of various companies, so LED companies can only solve the shortage of talent, the industry can get a good development.