LED leading manufacturers optimistic performance

There will be dawn in the long night, inadvertently, the LED industry's dawn. Optimistic performance, increased capacity utilization, and skyrocketing share prices are all stimulating everyone's nerves. Philips announced that its Lighting Division's sales in the second quarter increased by 2% year-on-year, thanks to the growth in automotive lighting, Lumileds business and consumer lighting business. Sales of LED-based lighting products increased by 28% year-on-year, accounting for 25% of the sales of the lighting division.

The first half of the net profit of domestic packaging plant Jufei Optoelectronics is expected to increase by 25%-55% year-on-year. The reasons given by the company are threefold: Due to the increase in domestic smart phone market share and the increase in tablet PC shipments, the company’s small-size backlight The sales of bright series products grew rapidly; based on the full preparation of technology and market in the previous period, the sales volume of large-size backlight products of the company’s major TV manufacturers in the first and second tiers in the country continued to rise; as the LED lighting market grew, the company’s LED lighting products Sales grow faster. The rapid growth in the sales revenue of various types of products has brought about a net profit increase.

In terms of capacity utilization, Taiwan’s chip makers Jingdian and Yuyuan all indicated that capacity utilization was near full capacity in the first half of the year. The leader of the domestic leading Sanan Optoelectronics also stated that the LED market began to improve this year, especially in the second quarter, and the company is currently producing more than 130 MOCVD equipments in addition to several research and development equipment.

The stock price response is even more direct. Revolution Lighting Technology, Inc., the top index maker in the Nasdaq, is an LED lighting equipment manufacturer. As of July 15, the company’s share price has risen 630% this year. Cree, the national LED chip leader, also rose more than 100% during the year.

The lighting needs are outstanding

We believe that the factors driving the recovery of the industry are the inflection point of the LED lighting market, backlight demand, and the optimization of the internal structure of the industry after market baptism.

In terms of backlighting, the penetration rate of large-size products such as televisions and monitors is already around 90%. The space is extremely limited, and the sales growth of these products is also very low. The tablet PCs and smart phones, which are still maintaining a relatively high growth rate, contributed most of the new demand.

The current mainstream view is that domestic LED lighting penetration is still less than 10%, and there is a lot of room for development. The direct selling price of LED lamps and ordinary energy-saving lamps is still high, but considering the use of electricity and replacement lamps during the use of the integrated cost has shown its advantages. Another important point is that in fact the experience of many LED light users in the previous two years was not very good. From the current grassroots research feedback, the situation has greatly improved.

The price of LED bulbs still maintains a definite downward trend. The data shows that the global low equivalent of traditional 40W incandescent bulbs (450-485 lumens, warm white) has dropped from 13.1 USD in July 2011 to 4.2 USD in May 2013. .

In fact, according to our observations, the lowest price has reached around US$2.5. Regardless of whether it is 4.2 or 2.5, the price of LED bulbs has a very rapid downward trend, and there is no sign of stopping. At present, the price gap between energy-saving lamps and energy-saving lamps is not big, and the price of energy-saving lamps equivalent to traditional 40W lamps is generally around US$2.

The optimization of the internal structure of the industry means that after a period of predicament, it restrained the investment impulse of the entire industrial chain from being excessively prosperous and entered the enterprise with a process of survival of the fittest. In recent years we have heard a lot of news about the bankruptcy of LED companies. It can be said that many of them fall into the "5 o'clock in the morning." Their fall is accidental and inevitable.

Do not want to

Whether or not an industry is healthy is not because all companies in the industry are highly profitable. This situation is often accompanied by “overheating” and will not last long. It is precisely the performance of the industry’s immaturity. A healthy industry must have the characteristics that the industry can still maintain a stable growth rate, there will be no obvious overcapacity and shortage, the internal competition in the industry is orderly, and a reasonable profit rate can be obtained. We believe that the LED industry is gradually having these characteristics.

In this process, the most benefited are undoubtedly several leading manufacturers in the industry chain, such as Sanan Optoelectronics, Jufei Optoelectronics and Ruifeng Optoelectronics. First of all, they have the technological capabilities of the leading peers, and the LED industry in the fast update of technology is the biggest advantage. It is also the biggest beneficiary of import substitution. For example, in the field of chips, Sanan Optoelectronics took the lead in the large-size backlight field, thus breaking the monopoly of Taiwan and Japanese and South Korean manufacturers for the LED chip market for large-size liquid crystal display backlighting. It recently won Shenzhen in one fell swoop. Mega Chi 500 million orders.

Subject to technical capabilities, the main business of other domestic chip makers is still generally concentrated in low-end markets such as displays, and the competition is fierce and profitability is low. In the high-power chip technology, there is little to do. In addition, leading manufacturers also have a certain scale of advantages, and more conditions to promote vertical integration and further control costs.