China's automobile production and sales rank first in the world

Last year, China's automobile production and sales were 19,217,800 and 19,390,400 respectively, up 4.6% and 4.3% respectively, driving the booming of the related auto parts industry. The growth rate of LED auto lighting is nearly 10 times that of the total production and sales.

Before 2010, the average growth rate of the domestic LED automotive lighting market was 13%. In the past two years, the LED lamp market has grown at a rate of more than 40%. Last year, the domestic automotive lighting market exceeded 20 billion yuan.

As of the end of 2015, automotive lighting needs to meet the carbon dioxide emission reduction targets. As a recognized representative of low-carbon and environmental protection, LED will naturally be included in the scope of automotive lighting upgrade and transformation, becoming the darling of automotive lighting, thus forming a market demand of tens of billions or even hundreds of billions, LED automotive lighting market prospects Can be expected.

However, this huge tens of billions of markets are divided by foreign companies, companies with foreign backgrounds and leading edge in innovative technologies, which are dominated by Europe, the United States and Taiwan.

Due to technical limitations, many LED lighting companies in mainland China do not have many enterprises involved in the automotive lighting business, and the scale is not large.

Taiwanese companies have tried water

Concerned about the mainland LED automotive lighting market, and gradually complete the transformation into this field, of course, the first Taiwanese enterprises.

As the pillar of Taiwan's optoelectronic industry, LED light source has made important contributions to Taiwan's optoelectronic industry for many years. However, since 2010, the overcapacity cloud has begun to hang over the entire LED industry for a long time. Affected by this, the price of LED light sources has dropped sharply, and the gross profit margin of products has declined. Taiwan LED companies urgently need to find new ways for their own light source products.

Obviously, high-interest, high-threshold LED car lighting is in line with the needs of Taiwan's LED light source companies.

Last year, Taiwan's LED companies spurred a wave of transformation into automotive lighting. Including the old companies such as Jingdian, Yuyuan, AUO, Dongbei, etc., they have extended their business to international auto brands, and take advantage of the mainland labor cost to actively invest in the mainland to build factories and accelerate their own LED lighting. The pace of development in the field.

Some companies have achieved initial results in the automotive LED market. For example, Ronda, a subsidiary of AU Optronics, has started to use its brake products for car brakes; Dongbei is concentrated in the market for instrument panels and daytime running lights; and Yenyuan Optoelectronics regards the LED lighting market as a partner with the future. The differentiated market between Sanan accelerates the development of new products for LED automotive lighting.

European and American companies grabbed

For LED automotive lighting, Taiwanese companies can only be regarded as a rising star. As the big brothers in the field of automotive lighting, Hella Group, Osram, Philips, Vishay and other European and American companies, they are naturally not willing to lag behind Taiwanese companies. They have used their original channel advantages to launch a fierce attack on the mainland automotive lighting market. lively.

The head of the German Hella Group said that the Hella Group has decided to invest in China before 2020. In addition to the three lighting factories under construction, it will also expand several R&D centers to serve FAW, BAIC, SAIC and others in the future. Many Chinese local car brands. At present, the investment of Hella in Beijing, Chengdu and other regions has begun to show signs of success.

In addition, Osram, Philips, Vishay and other European and American lighting giants have also increased investment in LED automotive lighting, making the current domestic LED automotive lighting market show a "one super and many strong" competition.

Obviously, high-interest, high-threshold LED car lighting is in line with the needs of Taiwan's LED light source companies.

“One Super” refers to Shanghai Xiaoyu, which mainly provides lighting support for automobile manufacturing enterprises such as Shanghai Volkswagen, Shanghai GM and FAW Toyota, with a market share of over 40%. “How strong” refers to foreign-invested enterprises such as Stanley Electric, Changchun Haila, Hubei Valeo and BYD and other representative domestic enterprises.

However, despite the increase in attention and investment, the current penetration rate of the domestic LED automotive lighting market is not high. It is understood that the penetration rate of LED front lights is only 1%, and only the penetration rate of vehicle lights is relatively high.

Xiao Zhiyong, deputy director of BYD lighting sales, told reporters that LED front lights are costly and technically demanding. Therefore, few auto companies use LEDs as front lights, and mainly rely on traditional lighting. In the BYD series, only the S6 uses LED lighting, but the brake lights, instrument lights, decorative lights, etc., have all adopted LED lighting.

Ai Xiaoming, CEO of Osram (China) Lighting Co., Ltd. said that traditional lighting is still dominant in the automotive sector, and the LED market is still very large.

State-owned enterprise technology needs to be upgraded

Sun Yaojie, a professor at Fudan Electric Light Source Research Institute, believes that the level of domestic automotive lighting technology is quite different from that of developed countries in Europe and America. The number of key core technologies with independent intellectual property rights is limited, which also makes domestic LED lighting companies lose in the field of automotive lighting. The right to speak, China's automotive lighting system should establish its own technical system and "Chinese standards."

Lin Yandan, a professor at Fudan Electric Light Source Research Institute, also holds the same view. Chinese local companies are making more minor changes and changes in automobile lighting based on foreign automobile design. The basic standard in the industry is the EU automotive standards and regulations system.

Despite this, there are still opportunities for domestic LED companies. According to Gong Wen, chairman of Jingtai Optoelectronics, according to the current development level, the domestic automotive lighting market has just started, and the automotive lighting system includes 30-40 kinds of LED products, which cannot be monopolized, so it is reserved for domestic LED lighting companies. The space is still quite large.

With the continuous improvement of the domestic LED automotive lighting technology level, this opportunity will be even greater.

It is precisely because of the huge business opportunities in the auto market, and the tremendous pressure from Taiwanese companies and foreign-funded enterprises, domestic companies have also tried to test LED automotive lighting.

On April 19th, automaker Xingyu (SH.601799) announced the announcement of investing in “500,000 sets of LED lights and supporting projects per year”. According to the announcement, the company plans to use 588 million yuan to invest 500,000 sets of LED lights and supporting projects. The project is expected to have a construction period of two years, with a total annual profit of 186 million yuan and a financial internal rate of return of 20.67%.

In addition, LED companies such as Hongli Optoelectronics (3 0 0 2 1 9 .SZ), Jingtai Optoelectronics, Xieyuan Optoelectronics, Feile Audio (6 0 0 6 5 1 . SH) have started as early as a few years ago. LED car lighting is done with technology and channel preparation. Listed companies such as Snow Wright (0 0 2 0 7 6 . SZ) and Ruifeng Optoelectronics (300241.SZ) have also begun to get involved in the field of LED automotive lighting.

"At present, as long as the domestic LED companies are on the scale, they are directly or indirectly giving OEMs to automobile brands." Zhang Hongbiao, director of the High-tech LED Industry Research Institute, said.

New opportunities to increase profits

Today, the biggest trouble for domestic LED lighting companies is the decline in profits brought about by the sharp drop in prices. The characteristics of high-margin and high-threshold lighting of automobile lighting may become a new opportunity for brand LED lighting enterprises to increase profit margins. According to the "LED Lighting Channel" reporter, most of the companies involved in the field of LED automotive lighting have achieved good returns.

Feile Audio previously acquired the automotive lighting company Shengyi Industrial. In 2012, the total revenue of Shengluo was 287 million yuan, an increase of 18.26%, and the operating profit was 39.52 million yuan, an increase of 25.01% and a net profit of 34.91 million yuan. This year's growth of 23.4%, which also played a huge role in promoting the performance growth of Feile Audio.

Hongli Optoelectronics has also achieved good returns. Last year, Hongli Optoelectronics' subsidiary, Guangzhou Foda, a subsidiary of automotive LED lighting products, achieved sales revenue of more than 46 million yuan and the gross profit of automotive LED lighting products was as high as 41%.

Xiao Zhiyong also said that although BYD's automotive lighting products are self-produced and sold, they have not entered the market, but they have also contributed positively to the cost control of BYD Auto. Later, with the continuous maturity of automotive lighting technology, BYD's automotive lighting products will gradually move to the market, achieving the company's new profit growth point.

Gong Wen believes that "the gross profit of automotive LED products is three to five times that of ordinary LED products. In the current situation that the average gross profit of the LED industry is continuously falling, this market segment has attracted more and more enterprises to enter, and the competition will be in the later stage. More intense."

Even so, this huge market, which is expected to reach 100 billion yuan, will inevitably bring new development opportunities to major enterprises.