GE lighting announces withdrawal from Asia and Latin America market

According to media reports, GE GE Lighting CEO Bill Lacey, in an internal memo sent to the company, said the company would withdraw from Asia and Latin American markets in November 30, 2016. GE is sending a message inside the company that it will withdraw from Asia and Latin American markets by the end of 2016, focusing on profitable European and American markets and intelligent LED lighting products and platforms. (image source: GE Lighting) LEDinside mastered the exact message to confirm that the GE lighting senior did send such a message to the staff. Lacey said in a statement that GE lighting will focus on consolidating the market position of North America, Europe and the Middle East. The U.S. market has always been the primary source of revenue for GE lighting. According to the data collected by LEDinside, the revenue of GE lighting in North America in 2015 is up to 2 billion 860 million US dollars (approximately RMB 19 billion 80 million yuan), accounting for 55% of the total revenue. The European region accounted for about 25%, and the other regions accounted for about 12%. GE lighting accounts for less than 18% of revenue in Asia, while the Chinese market accounts for about 8%. In accordance with the classification of lighting application categories, most of the Asian revenue from GE lighting comes from access, accounting for 48%, retail accounts for about 20%, and industrial lighting at the end of 13%. GE lighting abandoning the low profit regional market, according to LEDinside, the competitiveness of European and American LED lighting manufacturers in the Asian market is often not as good as the products of Chinese competitors, making the European and American companies only barely grab a bit of market in the price sensitive market. In recent years, the profit of the general LED lighting products in the Asian market has been diluted by a large number of Chinese competitors into the market and turned into a retail price orientation. For example, according to data collected by LEDinside, the price of 40W LED bulbs in the Chinese market in July 2016 fell by about $2% to $3.4 (about 22.68 yuan), much lower than the global average bulb price of $9.4 in the same period. According to the agreement of China - ASEAN Free Trade Area, China's LED lighting products import zero tariff so that Chinese manufacturers can make up the price advantage in the Asian market. GE lighting center shifted to high profit intelligent lighting because of the stronger market competition. In recent years, the profits of LED lighting products have continued to fall, and the front-line LED manufacturers, such as PHILPS lighting, OSRAM and GE lighting, have shifted their focus to higher profit lighting products and niche markets. In the same letter, Lacey says GE lighting will create a new R & D center, join the development of LED lighting technology and launch more domestic lighting products. Under such a plan, GE lighting hopes to start testing related products and develop new intelligent lighting ecosystems with different partners and build a flexible and intelligent lighting solution. After the incandescent, halogen and fluorescent lamps, the market demand for GE lighting to better profit LED lighting. GE lighting predicts that LED will account for 50% of the U.S. market revenue in 2020 and account for 80% of the company's global revenue. During the conversion center to LED lighting, GE lighting has closed 6 traditional light bulbs in the United States, including the incandescent bulb and halogen bulb production base, which was closed in August 2016. Alicia Gauer, a senior public relations public relation of GE lighting, says that many of the plant's capacity is now less than 50%. In addition, the weak demand for the traditional lighting market also allows GE lighting to decide to end the production of energy saving lamps in February 2016. It was reported that the revenue of LED lighting in 2015 was about $886 million. The signs that GE lighting shifts to high profit intelligent lighting and lighting systems can be seen from the company's split GE Current. LEDinside expects the global smart lighting market to grow fastest between 2016 and 2020, and is expected to rise from $23.5 to $13 billion 430 million. GE lighting decides that the less profitable regional market is in fact influenced by the market strategy, that is, the strategy of leaving resources in more lucrative regional markets, products and intelligent lighting products is the same.