It’s a mad LED world

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It’s a mad LED world

Guangzhou, 26^th November 2013

5 Five more to go…
I am counting down to my 1000^th blog post! I would like to take this opportunity to ask all my readers to send in your wishes, comments and feedbacks on how you have experienced the blog, what you have learned from the blog, what you like about the blog, how it has helped you in your life and so on, it does not matter anything you would like to say; all things that that I will then feature in my 1000^th blog as a thank you to all of you out there that have supported me and have taken the time to read my blog, some I know nearly every day. Thanks to those already reacted! Please let me hear more from you.

You have to give it to the Chinese…If there is any country where LED manufacturing is brought to another level it has to be China. I have avoided going to these LED “fairs” the last few years, but today I took the time to tour the LED Lighting Exhibition that runs parallel to the conference program and I have to say I am a bit overawed. With more than 200 companies present I was amazed about what was on offer…I guess probably more the quantity than the quality. Not so much the sophistication of professional lighting fixtures but more the raw/rough/crude lighting elements that produce lighting. LED T8/T5 versions galore, any form of incandescent and halogen lamp format in LED, high bay and street lights where the amount of light seem far more important than any form of comfort (what glare?), some interesting light panel applications and of course any sort of component you want, chips, heat sinks, it’s all there. Most seem to be interested in selling as OEM or ODM (Original Equipment or Original Design Manufacturers), all of them with the most beautiful company names, including Baby lighting and Cool lighting. Who wouldn’t want to buy from them…? 🙂

Interesting though is also the offer of automated machinery, tooling and testing equipment. That LED is big business is probably an understatement. Their catalogues are full of success stories, some of the big ones, like MLS (ranked only 4^th biggest according to their write up) are claiming more than 7500 employees, 300,000 sq/m of production facilities and a staggering USD 1 billion revenue expected by next year (This year USD 700 million!). They produced more than 13 billion LEDs (Dip, SMD and High power LEDs) with a target of 20 billion next year! If that’s not about quantity I don’t know, on top of that they proudly trumpet all their national and international certifications like UL, CUL, CE, FCC, CCC, GS, RoHS, ISO…you name it. Who wouldn’t thrust them…? 🙂

Light Watch 4-203: Impressions from the exhibition