In 2022, the competition in the small pitch LED market has been upgraded
Since 2022, the small pitch LED display market, which has frequently doubled in the previous five years, has entered a new development stage: medium speed growth replaces high growth; The market participants' share rises and falls, and the pattern of continuous adjustment of market position replaces the logic of the previous general rise; At the same time, under the situation of intensified competition, the market participation brand strength is still growing.
A series of changes show that the small pitch LED market has entered the second stage of development since 2022, and the core driving force and development law of the market have been upgraded. Small spacing led participating enterprises need to do a "comprehensive" response to this.
See the transformation of the market from the logic of mini LED products
In 2018-2022, the core technology change of the small spacing LED industry is the introduction of products using mini-LED technology. In particular, the four in one mini LED lamp bead products have greatly reduced the "technical difficulties and risks" of the midstream packaging enterprises and downstream terminal enterprises, and become a key factor to promote this technological progress.
However, while many manufacturers have entered the field of mini LED display large screen products, we can also see that mini LED products have not "brought great progress in product spacing indicators": they have only been further compressed to p0.9 on the basis of P1.0. This change failed to surpass the "gap technology height" in the field of small pitch LED products in the past three years. This shows that the market target of mini LED is "highly coincident" with the existing technology products.
"The new technological progress is not in the direction of expanding the market width"; This is obviously different from the logic of "technological progress" that small spacing LED has been expanding the market application range through the gap gap index, and increasingly entered the high-end visual effect application scene, and cob products have led small spacing LED display equipment to enter the ultra high-end command and dispatching center market.
In this regard, technical experts believe that it is not that "products with lower spacing cannot be developed", but that the market needs LED large screen to provide what spacing indicators:
First, as an indoor large screen display system, led small spacing products face the application logic that "viewing distance" determines "pixel particle resolution" when viewing. In this regard, the viewing distance of more than 5 meters and the pixel spacing of p1.0-1.2 have been "hard to detect", which is sufficient to form a smooth display effect. If combined with the excellent pixel particle surface lens design, the imaging quality of the product is excellent enough to meet most indoor market applications.
Second, of course, there is no technical reason for the market to reject the efforts of "ultra-high pixel density and continuous improvement of PPI resolution" - in the words of the industry, no one rejects high technology, but the premise is "cost". For the small pitch LED screen, which is a "display panel product assembled one by one with a single pixel particle", the improvement of pixel PPI is facing a geometric increase in cost. Although Mini led particles can reduce the cost of lamp beads by reducing the wafer consumption area, they cannot change the huge workload in the terminal integration stage.
At the same time, the lower pixel spacing also means that a higher technical level is required for the point defect problem - even means the reduction of the yield and the improvement of the repair rate, which also increases the manufacturing cost of the product. Therefore, for the LED display system with high PPI, the increase in cost will become the main "market expansion resistance". This also determines that when p1.0-p1.2 can meet the mainstream high-end demand, the market value of further lowering the pixel spacing index is limited.
That is, judging from the market behavior that "mini-LED products do not focus on the development of products with smaller spacing", it can be seen that "small spacing LEDs have entered the mature period of 'spacing' indicators". The technological war of competing for the space level has "come to an end".
Product competition logic gradually turns to "better experience"
Since 2018, the product direction of the small spacing LED market has been upgraded to emphasize the dimensions of "vision, stability, maintainability and cost", and gradually not to emphasize the leadership of the product spacing level. This trend will be further upgraded in 2022, rewriting the definition of "advantage" in the market and becoming the consensus of manufacturers.
Industry experts believe that the most core effect defect of traditional LED display products is reflected in the "visual pixel granulation". The essence of this phenomenon is due to the low area ratio of "luminaries" on the screen. The improvement means is to provide a good "optical lens" design for each LED crystal and pixel. The visual comfort of cob products mainly lies in the special optical structure achieved by large-scale overall packaging of LED crystals.
On the other hand, the traditional LED display screen is a "delicate" product. Traditional outdoor applications, although the "environment is bad", are mainly wind, dust, rain and sunshine; At present, indoor applications, especially commercial display market applications, will face more "man-made accidents".
Therefore, there is a higher demand on the product's anti-collision, scratch and other requirements - this is also the advantage of cob packaging products and the integrated adhesive sealing technology of bulk crystal particles.
However, from the traditional outdoor large spacing LED screen to the current indoor small spacing LED screen, the core task of the LED display industry in the past five years is to pursue the "pixel spacing", and there is hardly enough time to consider the "special needs" of the products in terms of visual effects, reliability and other aspects, and indoor applications.
"Technological progress and innovation are not like eating one fat person at a time: there will always be priorities for solving problems." Industry experts pointed out that reducing the spacing is the most critical bottleneck to solve indoor applications; Meeting the P1.0 level spacing is the primary demand of the indoor high-end application market—— The small spacing LED industry took the lead in solving these problems and realized the "expansion of real market space!".
In the future, after solving the problem of pixel spacing, small spacing LEDs will further focus on tackling the "effect technology" to achieve a new upgrade of visual experience, reliability and maintainability, and further meet the different needs of indoor diversified applications. It will certainly drive the market competition from "solving the problems in the wider horizontal market to solving the problems in the experience quality and development level of the broad indoor market".
Since 2022, many small spacing led enterprises have positioned themselves as "system solution providers". In addition to continuing to maintain the technological upgrading of terminal products, we will actively lay out in the software, service, ecology and supporting industrial chains to form a new round of "growth hotspots". The active focus of talent atmosphere has also changed to a new dimension, and the demand of industrial enterprises from technical talents to management and marketing talents shows a new trend—— Led small spacing display industry has really entered a new "competition cycle".
The diversity of demand determines the "diversity of competition" of the LED display industry
In the face of the new round of growth law of the small spacing LED market, there are three characteristics from the perspective of data: first, the high growth rate has changed to the medium growth rate; Second, the absolute market growth is still not small, even at a historical peak in the short term; Third, the distribution of increment has the characteristics of "individual brand", rather than the situation of "tuyere economy and falling mud and sand".
At the same time, in addition to the attention paid to the stock market, in 2022, the competition in the LED small space display stock market is also intensifying, and the development of new markets has also become the focus.
The changes in the stock market mainly lie in the fact that "the market participants are growing, and the differences in key technical indicators between different participants, leading enterprises and new entrants are becoming smaller". This is a pattern of homogenization accompanied by supply side increment, which is a typical red sea market direction. This will inevitably increase the competitive pressure of enterprises. Specifically, it mainly refers to the completion of the layout of the high-end product line of the traditional LED screen enterprises that entered the small space LED market late; Comprehensive display service providers, commercial display enterprises and projection enterprises have further entered the small space LED market. These incremental brands will become the key dividers of the stock market competition.
In terms of new markets, the first is the expansion of application types, and the second is the development of international markets. The development of international market is affected by many factors including trade disputes. The expansion of application types is a trend that manufacturers can actively grasp. On the one hand, the price and cost of LED small spacing products have decreased; On the other hand, the market competition is becoming increasingly fierce. These two points, combined with 5g, informatization and visualization of more industries, constitute an expansion opportunity for a more diversified application type market.
In short, from the logic of market expansion brought by single increment and technology expansion to the current omni-directional competition of diversified, mixed formats and comprehensive strength, the transition of small space LED market is obvious, and the upgrading of manufacturers' competition strategy is inevitable. If one word is used to describe this change, it is that the small pitch LED display industry is becoming more "complex".
In the face of more complex industrial changes, there are two kinds of "strategic thinking" in the industry: first, concentration. That is to say, we should focus on our own advantageous market, strengthen vertical expansion, not discuss heroes by scale, but strengthen "stickiness and professionalism" in customer relations and market segmentation. For example, some brands focus on the dispatching command center market, others focus on the consumer display field, and some brands focus on the expansion of the conference room market.
Second, comprehensive market supply service providers. Such brands tend to pay attention to the overall performance increment, which reflects the "simultaneous progress in major fields" in the market direction. From the perspective of business performance, such brands often pay special attention to scale. And even adopt the policy of "independent brand and OEM parallel" in business. From the market perspective, the listed companies with small spacing led heads adopt comprehensive market strategies to build a more extensive and all inclusive industry development pattern.
In addition, there are "marginal participants" in the small pitch LED market. The main business of this type of enterprise lies in the diversified display integration, or in the security market, education market and other exclusive segments. In terms of LED products, they do not regard it as an independent "product category", but regard it as "one of the possible customer options" and flexibly package it in the system integration service. Such business objectives are not related to the sales scale of small spacing LED products, but closely related to the "share proportion" of the application industry. It can be said that it is a special type of enterprise entering the small space LED market from the industry market and the potential demand of customers.
The above different types of enterprises and enterprise strategies will further aggravate the competitive complexity of the small spacing LED market. Especially under the background of increasing product homogeneity and decreasing macro growth, the small spacing LED industry is facing a red sea pattern. This will become the key factor that dominates the development of the small pitch LED market in the near future.
To sum up, the small pitch LED market in 2022 will be very different from that in the past five years: it is like a student who enters the society from the Campus - he is facing systematic pressure to change rules. The small spacing LED market has entered a new development stage, the industry law is constantly upgrading, and the market focus is changing with each passing day, which will also bring more industry opportunities. "Change is the greatest opportunity", industry insiders said that by seizing the opportunity of this round of market adjustment, industry brands will soon establish long-term market advantages.
