China's LED industry is starting to take off: price is still too high

LED (Light Emitting Diode) light sources, known as one of the best alternatives to traditional light sources, have been used in lighting, home appliances, automobiles and solar energy industries for many years. It is predicted that the overall size of the LED industry chain in 2010 will reach 800 billion yuan.

However, does it really have the strength to compete with existing products?

Energy-saving LED

The "LED" technology is essentially a semiconductor lighting technology. The semiconductor chip as a light emitting material directly converts electrical energy into light energy.

In the field of color TV applications, since the beginning of last year, Hisense, TCL, Skyworth, Samsung, Sharp have produced a variety of LED TVs. The display of this type of TV is still liquid crystal, and the qualitative change is that the backlight is changed from "CCFL cold cathode fluorescent lamp" to "LED".

The reporter saw in front of a Suning Appliance's foreign brands of color TVs, that LCD TVs with LED backlights were convincing in terms of color, brightness, and clarity: 6 TVs flashed green screens at the same time. LED TVs The "blade" on it is even more tender and green.

Some LED TVs are also very thin. Some products are half the thickness of ordinary liquid crystals, and test reports have reported that the thicknesses of Konka, Hisense, and Skyworth can be as thin as 1.9 cm to 2.2 cm.

Another feature of LEDs is energy saving. According to a CBN reporter’s flyer, a 46-inch and 40-inch LED for a foreign-brand TV consumes 169 watts and 139 watts; but other LCD TVs consume 269 watts and 193 watts, which is higher than the former. 50% and 40% of energy consumption.

Sanan Photoelectric Dongzhi Sousawa told CBN reporter that LED lamps are extremely power-efficient. In general, the power consumption of LED lamps is 1/10 of that of incandescent lamps and 1/2 of that of fluorescent lamps.

In Shanghai Chengda Lighting City, a dealer of LED lamps took out 12 small particle lamps from the counter. “Its power consumption is about 2 watts. The current best-selling similar energy-saving lamps are up to 5 to 8 Watts and so on.” Another business owner with a lamp strip surnamed Yu said that 1 meter of red and blue LED lights consume 3 watts of electricity, and the power consumption of ordinary lamp strips is as high as 20 watts. "And, the use of ordinary light strips is very short, two or three months will be no electricity. LED lights can have a one-year life." Yu boss said.

Yi Zize also told reporters that the actual maximum life of LED lamps can reach 60,000 to 70,000 hours, which is about 10 times that of fluorescent lamps. “LED lamps have low voltage, high safety, light weight, short response time, and rich colors. Adjustable, free of harmful elements. Therefore, many electronic signals, automotive and other traffic signals will use LED."

Overpriced

However, the price of LED series products is really high.

Take the LCD LED TV, Suning Appliance in a 55-inch TCL brand LED TV prices as high as 24,000 yuan, while the size of ordinary LCD dropped to 12,000 yuan. 40-inch Sharp LED and non-LED color TV prices are 11,400 yuan, 7,199 yuan.

LED lighting prices are "high and low." Lamps in the city's LED lamp with a wholesale price of 6 yuan / meter, some shops can also out of the 8-10 yuan / meter price; the same length of ordinary lamp band only 2.5 yuan per meter. The 12-piece LED lamp cup is priced at 15 yuan/unit, and other halogen lamp cups are only about 5 yuan.

At present, although there are 3,000 companies in the country that are swarming in the LED industry, most of them compete in the middle and lower reaches and have less investment in R&D. Although there are dozens of participating LED chips with high technical and capital requirements (ie, the upstream industry), the cooperation effect between them is poor, and they are reluctant to export technology. As a result, each company in the upstream segment cannot scale, and the cost is difficult. Lowering, the price of LED applications is naturally high.

Moreover, most color TV manufacturers in China have only entered the LED backlight production line last year. There must be a process for the development of molds, colors, and other functions. If the cost of TVs and lighting products is drastically reduced, I'm afraid to wait. A few years ago.

White LED Bottleneck

In addition, the lighting company's sales staff does not recommend consumers to buy LED lamps. What's going on here?

The original dealer thought: "Don't look at the LED lighting colors are many, blue and yellow green have, but not practical. Compared to white energy-saving lamps, most of the LED lamps brightness is definitely not enough. You put it at home, can only be used for decoration You can't read writing."

The CBN reporter found that only a few chandeliers in the city of lamps can find LED lamps that can change color and contain white light. However, an 80-cm-wide chandeliers cost more than 1,000 yuan. The operators of light strips and lamp cups It is rare to sell white LEDs.

An analyst who did not wish to be identified stated that on the one hand there are fewer white LED chip companies, only domestic companies such as Sanan Optoelectronics, and white LED in Japan, but the price of imported products is very high; It is also due to insufficient marketing efforts. It does not have as much financial subsidies as the energy-saving lamps and the government encourages residents to purchase. Currently, white LEDs can only be used in high-power lighting such as street lighting, landscape lighting, and emergency lighting.