In recent years, more and more Chinese LED manufacturers entered into Japanese LED lighting market by the way of strategic co-operation. Nichia, Sharp, Toyoda Gosei, Showa Denko KK, etc. Many Japanese chip manufacturers co-operated with Chinese enterprises or expressed willingness to co-operate with Chinese enterprises.
LED enjoyed a rapid development in Japan in past few years. According to Japanese local statistics, annual sale of LED bulbs within Japan is more than 31 million, 40% higher than last year. In addition, many appliance stores in Japan began to set their own LED special counter for customers. The high demand of LED products in Japanese market makes themselves become the “hot cake” for foreign LED enterprises. Chinese LED manufacturers have seen Japanese LED marketing as the main development target.
Those who are prepared to enter this “overseas battle field” indicated that LED patent is a threshold and the standard is a pass. “If we want to enter Japanese LED lighting market, we have to overcome these two difficulties. It is very hard for medium and small-sized LED companies” Said Chen Zheng, CEO of Shenzheng Dingxi lighting technologies Co., Ltd. However, those who have already entered the Japanese LED lighting market complained that they start flimsy. “The present situation is not as good as we though. We suffered a lot of fierce competitions from local LED Projects companies. Meanwhile, we have to face with restrictions from patents.” Said one officer of Shenzhen Mason Technologies Co., Ltd.
At the same time, entering Japanese LED market is more and more difficult for Chinese LED manufacturers. “It seems that they don’t want to share this cake with us. The requirements for entering this market is much more strict than last year” Said Chen Zheng. Recently, Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Department announced a new regulation (will be executed in 1st July, 2012) for foreign LED manufacturers: only those LED products which owned EPS certificate can be imported into Japan. EPS certification has very strict requests not only for product quality and production tests, but also for their factories’ equipments and management. Most LED manufacturers can pass though EPS certificate in their products but fail in their factories’ examination.