The invisible war of LED packaging market continues to grow.

From the price war to the patent war, and then to the market competition, the LED packaging silicone industry is undergoing a new historical change. Behind this change of "love and hate", the LED lighting market is becoming more and more mature. Competition begins from simple price competition to comprehensive consideration, and the space of market segments such as UV LED and small spacing display is constantly enlarged. This also forces LED packaging silicon enterprises to start looking for a new way of "rebirth of Nirvana". Recently, LED packaging giant Dow Corning announced that the European Patent Office said that the patent No. EP-1556443 will remain valid. The patent is Dow Corning's wisdom product line, high refractive index (RI) phenyl silicone optical packaging technology. It is understood that this packaging adhesive can provide better optical output performance, enhance reliability and have the advantages of other high brightness LED lighting. In the rapidly changing European market, the decision of the European Patent Office has a significant impact on the layout of Dow Corning patent. The integrity of the patent is of strategic importance, and Dow Corning also has LED production bases around the world, such as the United States, Japan, Korea and China. As the main battlefield of LED lighting, the Chinese market is more important to Dow Corning. The integrity of the patent will undoubtedly give greater scope to Dow Corning, which has been "unable to support" in China's "battlefield". In the competitive market of LED packaging in the past, Dow Corning, Xinyue and other international giants were leading the market by virtue of brand superiority and product technology. Statistics show that before 2010, more than 75% of LED Encapsulated Silica Gel market was imported. At that time, the domestic glue enterprises mostly took the low fracture silica gel market with low technical difficulty as the entry point, and began to realize the localization of LED encapsulation silica gel. It is understood that although the LED encapsulated silicone has a relatively small proportion in the overall cost of LED devices, it is a very critical application material, which plays a decisive role in the overall performance of LED devices. "Packaging enterprises are very cautious when choosing or replacing glue. They need to undergo rigorous tests to determine whether the parameters can meet the requirements of encapsulation and application. It usually takes a year for domestic and international manufacturers." Wang Gaoyang, deputy general manager of domestic packaging plant Hongli Zhihui, told new materials online. However, with the rapid rise of the domestic LED lighting market, the demand for glue as the core material of the packaging has also risen. This naturally attracts the attention of many enterprises and capital, and the domestic packaging silicone enterprises begin to frequent the front desk and compete with the multinational companies. Especially since 2013, the continuous increase of backlighting and lighting market demand has led to the rapid growth of LED white light package. As an excipient, the demand for LED packaging silicone has also been increasing rapidly, especially the increase of the proportion of COB and integrated packaging in white light package is accelerating the growth of LED packaging silicone demand. 。 With the continuous improvement of the performance of domestic LED encapsulation silicone and the decline of the price of glue, the advantage of imported silica gel has been weakening. At present, the domestic sales volume of LED packaging silicone has far exceeded the import volume, and the domestic sales of LED encapsulated silica gel have also surpassed the import volume. As the head of a packaging silicone enterprise has said, the trend of localization of these excipients is inevitable. Because of the more and more mature technology conditions, the technical gap between these materials enterprises and foreign enterprises will continue to shrink, and the price advantage will become more prominent. But with the expansion of market share, the output of domestic glue has surged, and it has entered the tragic situation of price competition rapidly. Packaging silicon companies are under the pressure of "double pressure". On the one hand, the packaging factories are constantly lowering their price requirements. On the other hand, they are faced with the pressure of upgrading technology products and increasing labor costs. Especially in 2015, the market situation of LED changed to a high speed growth trend in the past. It was plunged into a downturn. The profitability of many enterprises was worrisome. The increase in profits did not become the magic curse of many enterprises. Research statistics show that in 2015, the price of mainstream LED packaging devices in China was cut by 50%. In 2015, more than 1/5 of the packaging factories opted to quit or phase out. As an important excipient for LED encapsulation, silica gel and other materials occupy a significant proportion of the cost of packaging. In order to reduce the cost of LED industry chain, packaging enterprises use glue and other excipients as the main way to reduce the cost of enterprises. "Last year, the overall market for glue was relatively low, and sales increased, but prices fell." Chen Yongsheng, general manager of JE Guo new material, said that the ordinary LED glue had no room for price reduction. It could also have a certain reduction in the 10%-20% interval one or two years ago, but now the price has already been basically explored, and the glue enterprises have few profit margins. Statistics show that in 2015, China's LED packaging silica gel market sales reached 1500 tons, an increase of 21.4% over the same period, and its output value was about 1 billion 120 million yuan, down 3.4% from the same period last year. The price of glue fell by more than 20% throughout the year. Although the LED market has just begun to pick up in the first half of 2016, prices have picked up slightly, but the "secret warfare" of silicone packaging enterprises is getting more intense. Nuggets market segmentation, even in the first half of the LED packaging price rebound, the field of packaging silica gel is still cold. "The price of high-end silicone products has fallen by 30% - 40% in the first half of the year," he said. Li Benjie, general manager of Lian Lang new material, told new material online that the main reason for silicone enterprises is to improve the reliability of the packaging customers and reduce the overall cost of customers. Another packaging silicone factory, JE Guo new material also said that with the rising voice, the LED industry in the first half of the general trend of warmer. The price surge will not touch the price of glue material, because the price of glue has been bottomed out, there is no room for price reduction, of course, it is difficult to see the price rise. "Entering this year, the polarization phenomenon of LED material enterprises is becoming more and more obvious. Many small glue factories have been eliminated. There are only a few glue factories left in the market." Chen Yongsheng said. According to the information feedback that I interviewed several packaging factories, I did not rule out the possibility of increasing the cost control of the packaging enterprises in the second half of the year, which means that the cost of matching materials for packaging glue will be cut again. In the face of impact, it is imperative for packaging silicone enterprises to find new profit growth points and transfer them to high Maori products. Many glue enterprises have begun to tighten their layout in areas such as filament lamp adhesives, UV packaging adhesives, small spacing display packaging adhesives and so on. "Our UV packaging adhesive is the key point, and the filament lamp glue is the best one with the best adhesive force." Li Benjie said that the overall amount of UV packaging adhesive is not large. Lian Lang and OSRAM are working together to develop UV resistant and gas resistant high folding packaging products. In addition, the rise of plant lighting will also bring new directions to silica gel enterprises. The layout of Jay's new material in the field of filament lamp adhesive is long-standing. The new product of jjo began to lay out LED filament glue in 2013, and new products came out continuously. In 2013, the 6042 series 360 degree LED filament silicone gel produced by Jie Guo Electronics was widely concerned by the market. In the second half of 2014, the 6042 upgraded version of 6048AB series 360 degree filament silicone gel was introduced. In 2015, the company launched the new LED filament adhesive 6020-14 again, and gained a good market response. In the past 2016 Guangzhou Guangya Exhibition, Jie Guo new material also used LED filament glue as a key promotional product. Huggu chemical is concentrating on upgrading its existing COB packaging products. It is expected that the high heat resistant packaging silicone will be introduced in the third quarter in the COB. "In the field of CSP, we will accelerate the pace of development, increase interaction with customers, develop products suitable for customers and markets, and continue to make COB products with high heat resistance and continuously upgrade products." Zheng Haiting, chief engineer of Huanhui chemical, said Dr. LED. The invisible war in the glue market is still continuing, and the situation of the bigger and bigger will be clearer.