Where is the way out for LED lighting sub-brands?
In recent years, with the rapid development of China's lighting industry, especially under the influence of multiple factors such as the rise of e-commerce, the promotion of "Internet+", the entry of domestic economic growth into a new normal, and the structural adjustment within the lighting industry itself, the entire lighting industry is facing an unprecedentedly complex situation. Under this condition, China's lighting industry has still maintained a relatively high growth momentum, with domestic sales and exports showing a positive trend, achieving remarkable results, and LED lighting remains a sunrise industry.
Entering 2016, lighting companies have continued to explore specialized segment channels such as home decoration companies, chain supermarkets, and sports lighting, with brand concentration and designated procurement rates increasingly rising, and brand influence climbing year by year. These are important signs of the increasingly mature market operations of lighting brands. In addition, many LED companies have begun to engage in brand cooperation with related industries in broader fields, and brand segmentation is becoming increasingly evident.
Field segmentation appears more specialized
Market-oriented, adapting to market demand, establishing brand effects, and going deep into the market are currently the breakthrough points that many lighting fields are competing for. It is understood that in 2015, the LED lighting industry reached a scale of 450 billion yuan, and the market has entered a "meticulous cultivation" stage. Future competition will no longer be solely about products, but also about market segments and brands. According to industry insiders, in the next three years, LED outdoor lighting will become the fastest-growing segment of LED lighting, with China's LED outdoor lighting market approaching 15 billion yuan in 2015, presenting broad and promising prospects.
With the continuous development of the lighting industry, many lighting companies have also recognized that competition in the industry has evolved from product competition and price competition to brand competition. The importance of brand building for lighting companies has reached a consensus in the industry. With intensified market competition and severe product homogenization, companies need to combine their own advantages to find and develop suitable market segments in order to better find a way out. Therefore, market segments should be dominated by specialized, capable, and product-pursuing companies that have accurate market positioning, greater pursuit of product quality, and better ideas for brand building. In particular, emerging LED lighting companies need to find suitable market segment channels based on their own resource advantages and make more efforts in segmented fields.
Segment brands gradually transitioning to mass brands
China's lighting industry has been in a competitive landscape dominated by international brands for a long time. International giants such as Philips, Osram, and GE have relied on their high-end international brand image to cover almost all lighting category lines, while the only domestic brands that can compete with them are category brands represented by NVC, OP Lighting, Kingsun, and PAK. There is a serious lack of genuine industry brands in China.
Some professionals have pointed out that in the past, the lighting industry did not receive much social attention. For a long time, there has been a large number of brand-unconscious, brand-less products, and brand-less companies in the industry. Industry brand competition has been in an extensive, homogenized, and low-efficiency stage. Lighting companies cannot build their brands, cannot form brand effects, cannot enjoy brand premiums, and can only collectively fall into the vicious cycle of price wars. Clearly, industry brands urgently need to transition from industry brands known by industry insiders to mass brands recognized by ordinary consumers. This is a common problem facing the lighting industry.
Currently, brands in China's lighting industry are in a stage of transition from industry brands to consumer brands. With the continuous development of the lighting industry, the importance of brand building for lighting companies has become a consensus in the industry. Lighting companies have also recognized that competition in the lighting industry has evolved from product competition and price competition to brand competition. Generally speaking, whether a company can propose a more scientific and reasonable development plan to become a consumer brand is the key to achieving the next upgrade. Therefore, category integration and consumer brand building will become the inevitable path for leading category enterprises in China to build their industry brands.