Philips Lumileds: Focus on the lighting market

Philips Lumileds: Focus on the lighting market

——Dialogue Zhou Xuejun, Marketing Director of Asia, Philips Lumileds

Philips Lumileds is a world-renowned manufacturer of high-power LEDs, a global leader in high-power LED chips and an advocate for new lighting concepts. In 2009, the company increased its efforts to expand in Asia, especially in China, and set up new offices in Shanghai. What marketing strategy will the company implement in the future? How to treat the Asia Pacific market? Mr. Zhou Xuejun, Marketing Director of Philips Lumileds Asia, told his reporter about "High-tech LED".

At the interview, Mr. Zhou Xuejun, Marketing Director of Philips Lumileds Asia, and Zeng Cong, Editor of Gaogong LED, right.

Starting early, the original CTO is the father of Huangguang LED

High-tech LED : Now Philips Lumileds is already one of the four chip giants in the world. How did you start?

Zhou Xuejun : The predecessor of Philips Lumileds was the Optoelectronics Division of Hewlett-Packard (HP). In 1999, Hewlett-Packard reorganized its business and separated the measuring instruments from the optoelectronics business. Based on this, a new company called "Agilent Technologies" was established. the company. About ten months later, Agilent and Philips jointly established Lumileds, which was half invested by both parties. In 2005, Philips acquired another half of Agilent Technologies' shares, and Lumileds became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Philips, which was renamed Philips Lumileds.

As early as 1971, Lumileds CTO Dr. George Craford developed the world's first yellow LED and increased the brightness of red and orange LEDs by a factor of 10. George is also known as Huang Guang, the father of red LED. Like Mr. Nakamura Shuji, he is recognized by the industry as an important figure in the history of LED development. In fact, Lumileds created the first record of many LEDs. From the launch of the world's first 1W high-power LED LUXEON I in 2000 to the history of the smallest revolutionary LED LUXEON Rebel, Philips Lumileds has always led high-power LEDs. The development process.

High-tech LED : In 1999, LED was just getting started, lumen efficiency was very low, and where are the main application areas?

Zhou Xuejun : The LEDs at that time could not be applied to the general lighting field, mainly used for identification lights and signal lights.

High-tech LED : Where are your chips and package products mainly manufactured?

Zhou Xuejun : We have an epitaxial production plant in Silicon Valley, USA, a chip fabrication plant in Singapore, and a package in Malaysia. We barely sell dies and focus on providing high quality LUXEON LED products after packaging.

High-tech LED : Why didn't you move the packaging workshop to China like Cree, but in Malaysia, is there a lower production cost?

Zhou Xuejun : I think every company will have its own considerations. Anyway, one thing is certain, that is, capital will always go where the return on investment is high. In fact, there are quite a few LED companies that set up factories in Malaysia.

High-tech LED : What are the main features of your LUXEON products?

Zhou Xuejun : Now our main force is the LUXEON® Rebel product line. The LUXEON family has become more and more plump. In terms of white light, there are two series of general white light series and lighting. The general white light series is relatively wider in range, while the lighting special series is fully ANSI compliant. The bin is fully compliant with the ANSI standard. In fact, the general white light series can also be applied to lighting, but the lighting special series is targeted. Stronger.

We also recently released LUXEON Rebel PC Amber. It is well known that in color LEDs, Amber LEDs have the most obvious attenuation of light flux with increasing temperature. The general amber LEDs are made of quaternary materials, while LUXEON Rebel PC Amber is made of ternary materials. The phosphor turns blue light into amber. Since the blue light is less affected by the temperature, the converted amber color is less affected by the temperature, so the performance of the amber LED made of the quaternary material is significantly improved. LUXEON Rebel PC Amber is mainly used in the fields of traffic lights and car turn signals. Because its typical luminous flux can reach 70lm, it can also be applied to suitable outdoor lighting solutions.

Cooperate with Fuchang Electronics to develop the market

High-tech LED : When we mentioned Lumileds, we often have two other names, "Future Lighting Solutions" and Fuchang Electronics. What is the relationship between these three organizations?

Zhou Xuejun : Future Electronic is a Montreal-based company and one of the world's top three electronic component distributors. Lumileds has been working with Future Electronics since its inception. Future Lighting Solutions (FLS) is an independent division of Future Electronics, focusing on the distribution of Lumileds' LUXEON LED products and providing customers with LUXEON-centric Application solution. Currently. Except for a small number of direct customers, the distribution of most products is carried out through Future Lighting Solutions (FLS).

High-tech LED : Why don't you sell your own products directly, but sell them through agents?

Zhou Xuejun : This is related to the value we want to provide to our customers. Selling products to customers is not about collecting money, delivering goods, and then patting the butt to leave, no matter what.

Future Electronics also distributes a number of complementary products in LED systems, such as lenses, drives, and heat dissipation. FLS has extensive experience and knowledge of system integration, knows how to integrate the system, and maximizes the performance of LUXEON LEDs. . FLS will provide this optimized solution while selling LEDs, which is an important reason for our cooperation with FLS. In addition, FLS has an extensive distribution network around the world that responds to customer requests in a timely manner.

High-tech LED : In this way, you are only a cooperative relationship, and neither party has a share of the other party.

Zhou Xuejun : Yes, Future Lighting Solutions (FLS) is our only agent in the world, and our cooperation is very close.

Focus on the field of lighting

High-tech LED : Where is the current market focus of Lumileds?

Zhou Xuejun : Philips Lumileds is the world's largest manufacturer and leader of high-power LEDs. We have achieved a leading position in automotive lighting, mobile photoflash, and are currently striving to establish the same position in general lighting.

High-tech LED : As far as I know, Cree's high-power LED modules in China are currently selling very well, accounting for one-third of the total market according to the data they provide.

Zhou Xuejun : At present, Cree's XLamp does sell very well in China, but it is not the case in the global high-power LED market.

Cree pioneered the Chinese market earlier. Last year, it was more successful, and it was almost pre-emptive without competitors. But we are the number one in the world and we have confidence in ourselves.

High-tech LEDs : In which areas is Lumileds products used, and what is the market position in these areas?

Zhou Xuejun : Just now, Philips Lumileds' LUXEON LEDs are mainly used in general lighting, automotive lighting and mobile photoflash. In terms of general lighting, we were the first to receive the certification of Energy Star in the United States; in automotive lighting, Lumileds was the first to introduce LEDs into the rear lighting of the car, and to provide full LED headlights for the Audi R8 sports car; for mobile phones, the previous camera phones only had cameras. Without the flash, we were the first to introduce LED flash into mobile applications, and we have pioneered the industry in these areas.

High-tech LED : At present, backlight is the fastest growing area of ​​LED, but it seems that it is not your development direction. Many LED chip companies in China mainly focus on the display market. Why don't you get involved in these two markets?

Zhou Xuejun : You asked a very good question. Every company has its own positioning and strategy. Philips Lumileds focuses on the development and application of high-power products. The demand for the LCD backlight market will indeed be large in the coming years, but it is basically based on low-power LEDs. To achieve leadership in this area, manufacturers must be able to quickly reach scale and take the lead in reducing costs. Then, continue to compress costs until you gain an advantage.

In the past, we bought a LCD for a few thousand dollars. Now we only need a hundred-inch LCD monitor for only one hundred and eight hundred. This process took only two or three years. I can imagine what kind of development this market will look like in the future. . Now that the LED-backlit LCD comes out, it will pull the price up a bit, but it should also fall back quickly. The fierce price competition in the consumer electronics field will quickly swallow the profits. For large-scale low-power LED manufacturers, there may still be opportunities to make a profit by running, but other competitors may become runners.

As early as 2005, we provided backlighting for the world's first LED-backlit LCD TV, Sony QUALIA. We have a good understanding of this application and we will keep an eye on it.

As for the LED display, from the current application, it is mainly based on low-power LED, and the application advantages of high-power LED in this field are not obvious.

We talk about the Blue Ocean and the Red Sea, and we are more than happy to swim in our own blue ocean.

High-tech LED : In other words, do you mainly take the high-end route?

Zhou Xuejun : We have high quality, high reliability products, but we can't say that we mainly take the high-end route. We will provide our customers with products and solutions that suit their needs in a focused market segment.

Optimistic about the Asian market

High-tech LED : From a regional perspective, where is the current market for Lumileds, which market do you mainly focus on in the future?

Zhou Xuejun : At present, our market share in Europe and the United States is still very large, but we also pay close attention to the Asian market, especially China. The manufacturing base of global lighting fixtures is in China. The Chinese government attaches great importance to the LED industry because it is an emerging energy-saving lighting method with great potential. We have recently established a new office in Shanghai, and we believe that the sales contribution from Asia will increase rapidly.

High-tech LED : What is the current market in India and Southeast Asia?

Zhou Xuejun : There are also emerging markets, but there is still a certain gap compared with mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Guangzhou Yunge Tianhong Electronic Technology Co., Ltd , https://www.e-cigaretteyfactory.com