The epidemic has changed living habits, and invisible light LED and special lighting business opportunities have re-emerged
Since the outbreak of the new coronavirus pneumonia, countries have adopted measures to prevent the spread of the epidemic, resulting in the suspension of production and business activities, which has brought a huge impact on the global economy, and the technology industry is also the first to bear the brunt. In the face of the challenges brought by the epidemic, in addition to responding to the production chain disruption and demand decline caused by the epidemic, manufacturers must also rethink their strategies and layout after the epidemic, in order to be able to deploy ahead of the next black swan effect. .
For the LED industry, since the production supply chain is almost all distributed in Asia, most of which are located in mainland China, coupled with the large amount of inventory accumulated in the past due to oversupply, so apart from the delayed resumption of work in mainland China in February and March, the epidemic has a greater impact on labor. In addition to the labor shortage crisis caused by the intensive packaging factories, the impact on the entire LED industry chain is relatively slight. Therefore, the changes in the structure of the LED industry chain after the epidemic are also limited.
However, the pneumonia epidemic has brought many application opportunities to the LED industry, including deep ultraviolet UVC LEDs for epidemic prevention and sterilization applications, infrared light sensing applications for social distancing control, and plant factory lighting to support food self-sufficiency. It is a market opportunity that the LED industry is expected to develop after the epidemic.
Demand for epidemic prevention technology breaks out: UVC LED supports disinfection applications, infrared sensing maintains social distance
In order to prevent the new coronavirus infected by droplets, the awareness of sterilization and purification of brands and consumers has been greatly improved, which has driven the market demand for epidemic prevention products. UVC LEDs with sterilization and disinfection effects have also become a new favorite.
Compared with the past, UVC LED manufacturers had to rely on increased efficiency and price competition to gain favor. In 2020, under the influence of the epidemic, UVC LEDs have the opportunity to gradually become mainstream and become standard equipment for home appliances, stimulating demand for components. LEDinside estimates that the output value of the UVC LED packaging market has the opportunity to reach a compound growth rate (CAGR) of 60 percent between 2019 and 2024.
The current UVC LED sterilization applications are most concerned with surface disinfection and air disinfection. Surface disinfection applications include sweeping robots combined with UVC LEDs, portable disinfection products and disinfection boxes; air disinfection applications are the integration of LED light sources or modules into air conditioners, air purifiers, or for air disinfection in vehicles.
Ultraviolet rays can disinfect and purify, and the sensing function of infrared rays can be used to control the number of people in public places, so that people can still maintain a safe social distance and prevent infectious diseases after reopening public places for activities.
A common application of infrared sensing recently is the 3D sensing function mounted on mobile phones and tablets, which can be extended to AR applications, facial recognition, gesture control, etc., or used in robotics, industrial automation, and self-driving technology.
Under the impact of the pneumonia epidemic, infrared sensing applications have developed a new opportunity: social distance control. Through infrared sensing technology, it can accurately locate and analyze the flow of people in public areas under the condition of anonymity, and assist shopping malls, public offices, banks, airports and other places that receive a large number of people at any time to control the number of people indoors to ensure safe social distance.
New lifestyle after the epidemic, plant factories help food self-sufficiency
The policy of closing cities and countries due to the impact of the epidemic has forced many import and export businesses to suspend, causing many regions and countries that rely on food imports to fall into a crisis of food shortages. Therefore, how to improve the food independence rate and reduce the impact of the epidemic on food supply has become an important consideration for many countries.
Emerging agricultural technologies such as vertical farms and plant factories that use LED lighting to grow crops can escape the constraints of the natural environment and reduce water consumption, which is regarded as the key to solving the global food shortage problem.
LEDinside observes that since 2020, many local governments have cooperated with enterprises to vigorously cultivate and build production bases for fruit and vegetables crops, promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional agriculture, and serve urban agriculture through the plant factory model. Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, which have long relied on food imports, have also recently announced big investments to develop plant factories or convert unused urban spaces into vertical farms.
In addition to supporting large-scale plant factories, LED plant lighting applications can also allow end consumers who are isolated at home to grow vegetables and fruits in their own homes. Under the trend of this wave of agricultural transformation, the demand for LED plant lighting is expected to continue to grow. (Text: LEDinside)