Affected by the new crown epidemic last year, heroes and heroes from all walks of life have entered or added UVC-LED disinfection and sterilization market. With the normalization of the epidemic, the industry has undergone a series of adjustments and a major reshuffle. The UVC-LED industry has begun to return to rationality. In this wave, some companies are forced to be eliminated due to fierce competition, and some companies are Combined with its own strategy, after evaluating the short- and medium-term prospects, he actively chose to give up.
Recently, some people in the industry have spread that the UVC-LED market has gradually fallen behind after a major explosion, and profit margins have fallen. Whether it is passive exit or voluntary abandonment, many companies have moved to the UVA-LED market with considerable profits.
Is it true? Is switching to UVA-LED a better choice?
According to the incomplete statistics of "UV LED Wind Direction", there are indeed many companies that have made internal strategic adjustments. There are two main situations:
1) UVA-LED business originally existed before the epidemic: After the epidemic broke out, UVC-LED was invested; after the UVC market returned to rationality, UVA-LED was re-emphasized, and UVC-LED was only used as an auxiliary business to stay on the sidelines.
2) UVA-LED business was not involved before the epidemic: After the epidemic broke out, UVC-LED began to be invested; after the UVC market returned to rationality, it switched to UVA-LED, and UVC-LED was only used as an auxiliary business to stay on the sidelines.
It is worth noting here that most of the companies that switched from UVC-LED to UVA-LED are new entrants after the outbreak, and most companies that have invested in UVC-LED before the outbreak have remained strong after the outbreak. Stick to the UVC-LED industry.
So, is UVA-LED really more attractive than UVC-LED, and even let these companies return or switch to it?
From the perspective of scale
At present, the application scope of UVA-LED involves industrial use and consumer industry, among which a large number of applications are used in industrial curing (ink, glue, coating), exposure, anti-counterfeiting detection, nail art, fishing, mosquito trap and other fields. 90% of the market for industrial use. In addition, the 365nm wavelength UVA-LED can also react with photocatalyst to achieve the purpose of decontamination, sterilization, antibacterial or cleaning the surface of the object.
Due to the 2019-nCoV raid, in the first half of 2020, UVC-LEDs were extremely hot and UVA-LEDs were cold. However, based on the development of more than ten years, UVA-LED still occupies a large share of UV LEDs, but the comparison before and after the epidemic shows that the proportion of output value has a trend of shrinking.
In the long run, UVA-LED will gradually replace mercury lamps in the curing market. With the maturity of technology, the increase of power and the improvement of industrial cooperation, UVA will grow steadily;
As for UVC-LED, due to its wide range of downstream applications, various scenarios continue to expand, mainly around water, air, and surface sterilization. The demand for consumer-grade surface sterilization products has plummeted this year, but most of the big -name new products of white goods have begun to carry UVC LEDs. 2021 will be the first year of white goods; in addition, static water treatment and 2L/5L dynamic water treatment also have a certain penetration rate. However, since 90% of last year's sales came from consumer-grade surface sterilization, the market sales of air and water sterilization could not be fully filled, so the overall market output value has declined.
However, it is worth noting that compared with last year, although the market demand for UVC-LED has dropped significantly, compared with 2019, the proportion of UVC-LED in the entire UV LED industry has also increased significantly. Therefore, from a longer -term perspective, with the improvement of the efficiency and performance of UVC-LEDs, the decline in prices, and the more healthy competition in the industry, there is still a chance to further increase the market share.
Conclusion: Experts say the Industry Research Center expects that the UV LED industry will reach 1 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. In 2020, UVC-LED will surpass UVA-LED for the first time. However, after "falling back" this year, the output value contributed by UVA-LED is still relatively large; But in the medium and long term, the growth space of UVB/C-LED cannot be underestimated.
From the price point of view
Let's take a look at the situation of UVC-LED first. Take the 275nm 1020mil chip as an example. As of June data, the price of UVC LED chips dropped by more than 80% from the highest point during the epidemic. The market median has fallen below 0.5 yuan/piece, and the low-brightness version is already at 0.3-0.4 yuan/ Compared with the price before the epidemic (price in 2019), there is also a decrease of about 70%.
The decline of UVC-LED prices needs to be viewed from two sides: on the one hand, the terminal requires better prices, and the decline in prices can theoretically further promote industrial development and increase application penetration; but on the other hand, it also means that manufacturers’ profits may be further improved. Compression, which will simultaneously reduce the enthusiasm of manufacturers to invest. In addition, limited to the performance of UVC-LED, successful application cases are mostly consumer-grade products, which are more sensitive to price in the long run. This is one of the reasons why some manufacturers withdraw from UVC-LED.
In contrast, UVA-LED, the world’s strongest UVA-LED light source supplier LGIT, will withdraw from the UV LED market in 2020, and after the inventory is consumed, high-quality UVA-LED light sources are in short supply, mainly relying on Seoul Viosys, Sanan Optoelectronics, and Zhonghuan Waiting for supply, high-end prices will not drop in 2021, but will see a slight increase. Even if the overall UVA-LED light source is reduced by less than 10%, the overall gross profit margin is still considerable, which is relatively attractive.
Conclusion: According to the industry research center data of experts, in the short term, the price of UVA-LED has not changed much, is relatively strong, and has stable profit margins, while the profit margin of UVC-LED low-power products is close to bottoming; and in the long-term From a point of view, the price of UVC-LED high-power products is still worth looking forward to. Once the volume starts, the market potential is not small.
From the perspective of uv led
Judging from the performance of UVA-LED for many years, it is currently comparable in performance to UV mercury lamps, and WPE (30%+) has even slightly exceeded, but there is still room for further optimization in terms of price, ink and photoinitiator matching.
However, it is worthy of recognition that the trend of UVA-LED replacing ultraviolet mercury lamps is clear, and it only needs time.
However, if you want to enter the high-end UVA-LED light source market, you still have a certain threshold. The choice of light source already has a certain degree of brand recognition. Latecomers need to find a differentiated entry on the basis of ensuring efficiency and yield. Occupy a place.
Let's look at UVC-LED again. After the outbreak of the epidemic last year, UVC-LED originally ushered in a good opportunity to educate the whole people and quickly open the market. However, the business opportunity caused some manufacturers to lose their standards and rushed into the market with a large number of shoddy products. For example, the Amazon platform completely offline China UV LED Products have a great impact on the development of the industry. With bad money driving out good money, the opportunity becomes dangerous, and quality problems have shown signs of regression in the industry.
But fortunately, after this big test, a round of reshuffle has eliminated most companies that only want to make quick money in the UVC-LED industry, purifying the atmosphere of the UVC-LED industry, and making people want to make profits through high-quality products and legitimate channels. , Enterprises that take the UVC-LED industry seriously can return to a rational and healthy competition track.
In the era of market economy, any industry will experience a process of short supply—price rise—follow the trend—oversupply—price fall—industry shuffling. The UVC-LED industry has experienced this process quickly, completely and violently in this year. , I believe that through the joint efforts of UVC-LED industry people, a better tomorrow can be ushered in.
But at the same time, everyone who is engaged in the UVC-LED industry should be more thoughtful and deeply aware that UVC-LED is a relatively special industry, which is closely related to the health of users-a reliable UVC-LED product, it can help Human living environment and health are escorted; but an unqualified UVC-LED product will bring about serious consequences of unprepared bacterial invasion and the risk of secondary harm to people after UV leakage.
Conclusion: The market prospect of UVA-LED is clear but the growth rate is slowing down. The future can be seen and the imagination is limited. UVC-LED is still in its infancy stage of development. After a series of tests, the industry has returned to rationality. With the improvement of performance and the advancement of the Minamata Convention, there will be a chance to usher in the upsurge of replacing UV mercury lamps in five years' time. Optimistically, UVC-LED is still on the track of vigorous development.
