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Display of new products. |
The light emitting diode (LED) industry, a new and high-tech sector, has one of the most promising development prospects this century, according to some enthusiasts. It's certainly creating a revolution for light source and display projects globally.
The Beijing International Advertising and LED Exhibition 2011 was co-organised by the China New Energy Technology Industry Association LED Committee, the China Illuminating Engineering Society Neon Technology Committee, the China Advertising Association of Commerce and the Beijing Shibolian Exhibition Service Co Ltd.
The Beijing show was one of the leading exhibitions for the trade in the country and attracted the attention of large industry players.
LED displays have become a top-selling product in outdoor advertising, with numerous advantages.
The most obvious is that advertisement content can be updated promptly. Both the advertiser and advertising agent can update the content of their LED display ads at any time; the updating process is not restricted by any external conditions.
The content of LED ads is updated once every month on average, while for small-screen LED display ads, content is updated at least once every three to five days or, at most, once a week.
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| Lighting at the Expo. |
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Data dissemination is also simple and easy. LED display screens are basically computer monitors connected to the computer via a data line or a wireless communication device. Putting up an advertisement requires a simple setting, and the process is fast.
Thirdly, the ad can take diverse forms. LED display screens are normally installed in public areas and transport hubs where there are large numbers of people.
Importantly, LED is energy-saving and eco-friendly. Its display screens not only protect the environment but can also operate outdoors under adverse weather conditions. They are corrosion-proof, water-proof, moisture-resistant, lightning-proof and earthquake-resistant.
In short, LED display has a high price-performance ratio and its actual performance is dependable.
New transmission technology upcoming
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Attracting visitors and attracting sales. |
Display technology is becoming more mature on the Mainland and with new transmission applications such as 3G applied extensively to outdoor media, LED display screens will light up with more colours – with implications for advertisers and entire related industries.
LED is a semi-conductor solid-state light source device capable of converting electric energy directly into visible light.
Possessing advantages of brightness, clarity, seamless tiling, high portability and low energy consumption, LED display screens are naturally popular in the ultra-large digital displays market, especially for mass media advertising.
Currently there are over 100 LED display screen manufacturers in China, with 90% private high-tech enterprises. At least 30 of these manufacturers have large-scale production facilities and R&D teams.
According to one of the fair organiser's team, China is more or less on a par with other countries for technology. This is mainly due to the fact that Mainland products have unparalleled advantages in price-performance ratio and they account for over 90% of the domestic market, making it difficult for foreign products to enter in the short run.
Foreign enterprises wanting to compete in the Mainland market and capture business opportunities must be able to offer new technologies and new co-operative formats.
LED's new ad medium
Information released at the Expo shows that the size of China's LED industry grew from Rmb82.7 billion in 2009 to Rmb120 billion in 2010, with an annual growth rate exceeding 70%, higher than the 50% growth rate of the total output of the global LED industry.
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| Creative products. |
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The scale of LED applications in the advertising sector registered significant growth, further stimulating the rapid growth of the industry.
It's estimated that by 2015 the entire LED industry will be worth Rmb600 billion and China will accumulate an annual saving of 100 billion kWh of electricity.
Large LED colour display screens will become a powerful new medium in information dissemination and advertising, with broad market prospects.
A trader participating at the Expo pointed out that in China, upstream epitaxial wafers and LED chips are mainly provided through technology-intensive and capital-intensive foreign or Sino-foreign joint ventures with branded products; they account for almost 70% of the entire LED industry's profits.
Hence, how to raise the technological level of domestic epitaxial wafer and chip production enterprises is an issue of great concern to Mainland enterprises in their future development.
The operator of an enterprise specialising in the production of outdoor ads said that through taking part in the Expo he could see that a certain gap exists between domestic brands and foreign brands in terms of design and solutions for meeting customer demand.
He said the LED technology used by his company is developed by a domestic high-tech company, but where key chip technology is concerned, foreign technology was better.
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Expo scene. |
Some LED enterprises only focus on seizing and expanding their market share in the advertising sector, that trader said, neglecting the core technology R&D needed for products. This undermines the industry's long-term development, he said.
Another exhibitor remarked that in a more sophisticated market, it’s not surprising that the pace of the LED advertising sector has accelerated, which has in turn promoted the development of the industry.
However, in order to build a better market, shortages of capital and technical personnel were primary issues.
Another problem was an effective market competition mechanism for long-term development. The government should quicken its pace in introducing more effective policies to encourage quality LED products to enter the market.
Industry collaboration
According to the fair organiser's representative, continuous expansion of the market has propelled the LED industry to develop rapidly and form a mainly complete industry chain, embracing epitaxial wafer production, chip manufacturing, IC packaging and LED market application.
However, collaboration among industry players is a "must".
The Shenzhen LED Industrial Association (SZLEDIA) has as its mission "serving enterprises, serving the industry, serving the government and serving society" and won acclaim from industry players.
Since Shenzhen is in close proximity to Hong Kong and Macau, and information flow among the three places is fast, the association has become a public service platform promoting the development of the Mainland LED industry.
According to information released at the Expo, SZLEDIA was established in Shenzhen in January 2010 and it currently serves as a large trading centre for the LED market on the Mainland.
A representative for the centre who took part in the Expo said: "this trading centre in Shenzhen aims to serve enterprises; it can interact with each and every enterprise at any time providing information on market demand and business opportunity."
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| Novel approach. |
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The centre is said to have attracted a large number of enterprises, but insists on what it sees as "a reasonable level of inventory", in which case it can source products for these clients. To keep the supply chain moving, the centre has reserve funds and plays the role of a financial service platform, providing support.
Some advertising agents said that compared with other industries, high-end services for various kinds of large-scale ads are one of the important segments in the development of the LED industry.
Many administrative departments tend to pay more attention to product technology and quality, but have no comprehensive marketing concept where high-end service solutions are concerned, agents said.
Service centres like the one in Shenzhen could be viable in other cities, where the demands for advertising agents and enterprises could be organised effectively and drive the entire LED industry.
from special correspondent Xu Lin, Beijing
