Hubei Laser Industry Revives After The Epidemic

After the explosive growth in 2017, the laser market growth continued to slow down in 2018 and 2019. When global manufacturers were eager to bring new market growth by 5g in 2020, they encountered the "black swan" new crown pneumonia epidemic.

However, after entering the third quarter, many laser industry enterprises have recovered. After the epidemic, Hubei laser industry maintained a high prosperity.

Taking Huagong Technology (000988. SZ) as an example, in the first half of 2020, the company achieved a revenue of 2.744 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.43%, and a net profit of 342 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.14%, and a year-on-year increase of 26.80% after deducting non-profit of 202 million yuan. In addition, according to the semi annual report of Ruike laser (300747. SZ), during the reporting period, the company realized a revenue of 709 million yuan, a decrease of 29.91% compared with the same period in 2019. The net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 67.0885 million yuan, down 69.33% compared with the same period of last year. However, after the epidemic, the company's orders were full, with more than 6000 CW fiber lasers in the second quarter. At present, the supply is in short supply and is expected to last until the second half of the year.

On September 16, Hu Changfei, general manager of Huagong Zhengyuan, said in an interview with 21st century economic reporter: "as a subsidiary of Huagong technology, the revenue of photoelectric device related business with Huagong Zhengyuan as the main body has reached 1.272 billion yuan, and the net profit has also exceeded 100 million yuan. The peak period of this year's laser industry only lags behind under the influence of the epidemic, and it is expected that the industry will usher in the peak season in the third quarter

Zhang Chao, a researcher at AVIC securities, said that the performance of laser equipment industry is expected to grow steadily under the double advantages of cost reduction and downstream demand expansion under the price competition of upstream lasers. "Although the overall macroeconomic downturn this year, the growth of laser equipment and laser enterprises has been restrained to a certain extent, it is expected that the demand for laser equipment by downstream industrial enterprises is still guaranteed."

Industrial application

For industrial laser, downstream application is undoubtedly the cornerstone of industrial development, and its development and evolution direction affect the pace of the whole industry. Since the outbreak of new crown pneumonia, the global manufacturing industry has been in a relatively low state, and the laser industry chain has also been affected. Some factories have been closed and the demand has been declining.

In the first quarter of 2020, the revenue of China's main laser enterprises decreased by RMB 1.05billion, which was RMB 1.05billion. In the second quarter of 2020, with the outbreak of overseas epidemic, the production and supply chains of global laser manufacturers such as IPG, tongkuai and coherent have been stagnating for a long time. Due to the limitation of supply chain, the delivery is delayed, and the investment planning of most enterprises is expected to be further extended. It is estimated that the global laser market scale will drop by more than 10% in 2020, and the market size will be only 13.6 billion US dollars.

"It is an indisputable fact that the manufacturing industry is in a downturn, but the impact of the epidemic on the global laser industry chain has two sides," said Xu pan Pangbo, director of jept's marketing department. Among them, the global laser industry in the first quarter of the decline is only a superficial phenomenon. For laser practitioners, we should see the opportunities behind the major adjustment of the industrial chain. The epidemic will reshuffle the advanced manufacturing industry and eliminate some relatively backward production capacity. "

"China Optical Valley" is the first Optoelectronic Industrial Cluster in China. Now it has reached the level of 100 billion laser industry cluster. Huawei, Xiaomi, TCL, Lenovo and other enterprises have invested in building factories here. In addition, Wuhan is also an important manufacturing base of China's automobile industry, where there are Dongfeng, Dongfeng dragon, Dongfeng Honda, Dongfeng Nissan and other automobile manufacturers, increasing the application demand for laser processing.

At present, the domestic alternative scheme of fiber laser has also taken shape, with more than 200 enterprises including Huagong technology, Ruike laser, Tieer laser, Jinyun laser, etc. At present, the fiber dielectric, high power laser chip, pump source package, fiber grating, beam combiner and optical output device of high power fiber laser have been realized by self-made or domestic substitution.

"The continuous progress of domestic substitution, on the one hand, contributed to the decline of gross profit of the industry, on the other hand, with the continuous deepening of the laser industry cluster represented by Wuhan Optical Valley, the situation of price for quantity will continue." A person familiar with Hubei laser industry told reporters that the continuous decline in manufacturing costs of head enterprises in the past two years will also help them gradually recover in the future.

"In the future, domestic laser parks should be differentiated and positioned, and scientific research should drive the development of the industry. For example, almost all laser companies in Lithuania have been hatched from two of the country's most powerful scientific institutions: the laser research center of Vilnius University and the Lithuanian physical science and technology center. On the other hand, the market is driven by the application. The "new infrastructure" projects introduced by the government often bring significant benefits to the fiber optic cable and laser manufacturing industries, further expanding the market demand for lasers. This is also a major basis for the layout of industrial parks. "

In a sense, the laser industry in Wuhan has such an industrial foundation. After the epidemic, the international competition is expected to reshuffle. This kind of industrialization and differentiation development idea will help China's laser industry to achieve overtaking on the curve.

Research and development of adding code

According to the data of laser focus world, the authoritative journal of international laser industry, the global laser industry is developing rapidly, and the sales volume of laser products is growing at an average rate of more than 10% every year, showing a trend of accelerated growth. In 2019, the global laser market size is 15.13 billion US dollars, with a year-on-year growth of 1.3%.

Xu pan Pangbo pointed out: "after the epidemic, new industries, new manufacturing industries and new technologies will continue to burst out, correspondingly, new requirements will be constantly put forward for laser enterprises. As long as the R & D industrial chain continues to be well done, it will be a key period for enterprises to transform and upgrade. Domestic laser enterprises just use this special period to do a good job in technology accumulation and precipitation, as well as to maintain close contact with customers. "

In its semi annual report, Huagong technology pointed out that since the second quarter, the company has increased R & D investment, through the integration of industry resources, guiding the research and development innovation of key new products and new technologies, reversed the situation in the first quarter, and achieved good results and achievements. "In the first half of 2020, Huagong technology has completed 115 patent applications and 20 software copyright registrations, basically eliminating the adverse impact of the epidemic on the company's technological innovation work."

Ruike laser also said that the company accelerated the pace of research and development, helped the company complete system level optimization and upgrading of its products, and pushed the domestic scarce key technologies to industrialization. "One is the successful research and development of a single cavity maximum 10 MW ultra-high power fiber laser; the second is the successful application of high-power fiber laser shutter; the third is the application of adjustable spot technology in high-power fiber laser. In the first half of the year, the new models of" high-power fiber laser with shutter "and" high-power fiber laser with adjustable beam "were launched in the first half of the year to solve the homogenization competition and realize the multi-purpose and multi-purpose of one machine Beam adjustable core technology breakthrough, solve the industrial application pain point. "

According to Hu Changfei, the number of data centers is growing rapidly this year, and overseas construction is also very rapid. With the construction of large data center, the requirement of broadband is higher and higher. 400g and 800g products will be applied in the data center. "In R & D, we regard data communication as one of the main business growth points. By constantly enriching the product line to meet the needs of different types of customers, we have built a full range of optical module products. This year, 100g optical module products have been delivered overseas. "

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