In the past two years, the automotive LED market has been growing rapidly.

The previous performance report released by Debonair Lighting shows that Debonair Lighting achieved operating revenue of 4.657 billion yuan in 2022, down 11.69% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 340 million yuan, up 3.89% year-on-year. Among them, the lighting business segment achieved operating revenue of 4.156 billion yuan, down 11.39%; the automotive business segment achieved operating revenue of 434 million yuan, up 54.61%.

In 2022, Debonair Lighting overcame the adverse impact of insufficient supply of automotive chips and the prevention and control of epidemic in Shanghai base, and successfully realized the scale mass production of LDM and BMS of existing fixed projects and the category expansion and capacity enhancement of automotive lighting components.

In addition to Debonair Lighting, Foshan Lighting, a leading domestic LED lighting company, has also gained a lot in the field of automotive lighting in recent years.

In November 2022, Foshan Lighting subsidiary Nanning Liaowang also helped SAIC-GM Wuling Air EV new energy vehicle to appear at the G20 Summit in Indonesia, showing the world the charm of "Made in China" and Chinese new energy vehicles with confidence.

As a domestic quality lamp supplier, Nanning Liaowang has set up subsidiaries and production bases in Liuzhou, Chongqing, Qingdao and Indonesia, providing quality lamp products for many car companies such as SAIC-GM-Wuling, Changan Automobile Company and Dongfeng Liuzhou Automobile Company.

Foshan Lighting revealed that the current automotive lamp module business is in full production, and the company will carry out large-scale production expansion in accordance with the development plan and market demand in the future.

01 Automotive LED market continues to heat up

Benefit from the automotive LED market continues to heat up, not only the mainland automotive LED manufacturers profit, a number of Taiwan manufacturers also profit from.

Due to the strong demand for automotive light business, LED headlight module manufacturer Liqing achieved revenue growth in February compared with the same period of the previous year. According to the financial data, its February revenue of 401 million New Taiwan dollars (about 89.942 million yuan), a monthly decrease of 20.1%, an annual increase of 10.99%. Revenue for the first two months of this year totaled NT$903 million (approximately RMB 202 million), a decrease of 2.2% compared to the same period last year.

Liqing internal pointed out that the current situation in mainland China plant back to normal, and the main LED headlight first-tier suppliers (Tier 1) customers to accelerate the pull, and the United States car factory customers also increase the LED headlight controller stock demand, help boost the subsequent revenue performance.

Automotive LED factory Lianjia also received a single explosion, won the Tesla pickup orders, the fastest the end of the second quarter to the beginning of the third quarter began to ship, and Ford, Chrysler and other U.S. car manufacturers large single, the second quarter to contribute to the operation, European car manufacturers orders have also been successively won.

After ADSEN joined the LED headlight market, Taiwan's listed cabinet LED headlight supply chain into a three-legged era, respectively, for ADSEN, Liqing, Lianjia. ADS Vice President Xu Zhengdian said at the conference, automotive finished product line in the first quarter of this year, equipment into the factory, tuning, and is expected to enter the second quarter of trial mass production.

In the automotive LED business continues to grow, photovoltaic revenue in February consolidated revenue of 10.8 billion New Taiwan dollars (about 2.421 billion yuan) increased by 1%, down 2%.

Photonics pointed out that the optoelectronic sector accounted for 23% of revenue in February; among them, the world's top-ranked shipments of photocouplers in industrial control and green energy and other high-end applications of stable demand, electric vehicle charging devices, automotive LED lighting and ADAS camera modules and other automotive electronics applications continue to grow.

Hongkai is locked in the new energy vehicle IC LED ambient light, towards the automotive manufacturers, the existing inside-view visible light source on locking large customers, hope that by the end of the year automotive-related revenue across 50%, continue to "semiconductor integrated solutions company" transformation.

According to statistics, the new energy vehicles need an average of 400 ambient lights, the demand is huge, the threshold for entry is high. Hongkai IC LED ambient light in last year after the start of delivery, January this year, the proportion of automotive use up to 47%, its goal set for the end of this year, automotive use across 50%, if the general economic climate no longer deteriorate, the annual operation will challenge the growth of 30%.

LED driver IC factory agglomeration performance to actively seize the automotive LED market. 2022, its LED car, virtual studio, MiniLED driver IC market has gradually opened, including MiniLED car backlight display has entered the front-end market supply chain, car lighting is also a stable supply of global automotive majors, is expected to be full of growth potential in the field of automotive this year and next two years.

02 automotive LED manufacturers to increase the layout

Undeniably, the automotive LED market has ushered in a period of vigorous development. In particular, the LED headlamp penetration rate has increased, and the rapid development of advanced technologies such as smart headlamps, logo lights, and smart ambient lights has supported the market demand for automotive LEDs.

In order to meet market demand and seize market opportunities, automotive LED manufacturers have stepped up their layout and made breakthroughs in technological innovation and product innovation.

Recently, Suijing Optoelectronics released an announcement that, according to the company's business development needs, Suijing Optoelectronics and natural person Ms. Yu Wenjun will jointly fund the establishment of a holding subsidiary "Shenzhen Suijing Automotive Electronics Co.

Suijing automotive electronics main business is mainly automotive LED lights, optoelectronic devices, modules, research and development, manufacturing and sales. Suijing photoelectric pointed out that this move can integrate advantageous resources, better expand the industry development opportunities, increase the company's industry competitiveness and profitability.

And in addition to the establishment of the subsidiary Spiegel Auto Electronics, Spiegel Photoelectric also announced in May 2022 to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary Spiegel Semiconductor. Suijing semiconductor business scope in addition to integrated circuit chips, but also includes automotive electronics, etc., it is clear that Suijing photoelectric importance to the automotive market.

In terms of products, in order to further enhance the performance of intelligent ADB headlights, Huayin Core announced the launch of a new 102 Pixcell ADB matrix light source module.

It is understood that the ADB matrix light source module released by Huayin Core, using the "CSP on TIM" technology route, to achieve a highly integrated arrangement of 102 CSP lamp beads, each pixel point is individually controlled by the driver, giving the ADB light source module fine zoning lighting capabilities.

Mande Optoelectronics, a manufacturer of automotive light assemblies, also recently released the industry's first automotive-grade MiniLED high-resolution graphic interactive taillight. It is understood that the product uses "millimeter-level dot matrix light control" technology, combining MiniLED with traditional taillights to achieve high-definition custom wisdom screen graphics display.

03 Automotive LED market triggers capital fever

As the automotive LED market continues to heat up, the automotive LED market is becoming more and more active.

On March 8, automotive parts manufacturer Yibin Technology successfully rang the bell in the Shenzhen Stock Exchange main board listing.

The listing, a Bin technology to raise funds of 526 million yuan, after deducting the issue costs, the net proceeds of 466 million yuan, mainly for "auto parts (Cixi) production base construction project", "R & D center and information technology upgrade project", "supplemental working capital project". "Supplementary working capital project", etc.

Among them, "auto parts (Cixi) production base construction project" after completion, will form an annual output of 3.46 million sets / year of auto parts production capacity.

On February 22, another auto parts manufacturer Sunyu Precision also officially landed on the North Korean Stock Exchange, the stock price once rose nearly 60% during the day.

The listing, Sunyu Precision intends to raise 170 million yuan, mainly for "automotive intelligent functional parts and precision mold intelligent manufacturing plant construction projects" and "automotive intelligent and high-end manufacturing equipment research and development projects.

At the end of 2022, automotive LED module manufacturer Tongbao Optoelectronics launched an IPO on the North Stock Exchange and signed a counseling agreement with Industrial Securities, which has officially entered the counseling stage.

It is reported, Tongbao Optoelectronics is a professional engaged in automotive LED module and LED lights design, research and development, production and sales of enterprises, its automotive LED module products cover the combination of light modules, turn signal light modules, daytime driving light modules, position light modules, brake light modules, door light modules, car dome light modules and other full range of products, LED lights products including daytime driving lights, turn signal lights, brake LED lights include daytime driving lights, turn signal lights, brake lights and other products.

In general, automotive LED as a special branch of the LED industry, with high value-added products, high barriers to entry, strong scale effect, etc., also attracts more and more industry chain enterprises to enter.

However, in 2023 and beyond, automotive LED companies are no longer competing with simple technology development maturity, but also need to have a deeper understanding of the entire automotive industry, especially the new energy vehicle market, in order to provide integrated and complementary solutions.