The practice of some LED lighting companies sacrificing product and service quality to cope with price wars, and the temptation to be kidnapped by interests has begun to show negative consequences.
Domestic LED lighting companies failed to pass the test
On July 9, the Guangdong Provincial Administration for Industry and Commerce issued the "Announcement on Ordering Operators to Take Measures to Stop Sales of Determined Defective Products (2nd Batch of 2015)". This announcement involves 37 models of LED lighting fixtures. The companies are located in Zhongshan, Foshan, Jiangmen, and Guangzhou, with Zhongshan companies being the most numerous.
In April, the Guangdong Provincial Quality Supervision Bureau reported that 31 batches of lighting products failed to pass the spot inspection. This inspection inspected a total of 267 batches of fixed/movable/embedded lighting products produced by 202 companies in 9 cities (districts) including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, and Shunde. The discovery rate of unqualified products was 11.6%.
LED lighting companies “beware of being kidnapped by profit” price war
In May, the official website of the Guangzhou Municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce released a random inspection report on lighting fixtures. The results showed that 40 out of 70 samples from 45 companies were unqualified, with a failure rate as high as 57.14%. The problem of substandard safety inspections was more prominent. Well-known manufacturing brands such as Baoshida, Lanshi Lighting and Foshan Lighting are on the "black list".
In August, the Hong Kong Consumer Council commissioned an independent laboratory to test ten LED light bulbs on the market. It pointed out that in five of the brands, namely Panasonic, Ryders, LKKM, Sunshine and IKEA, the brightness of the bulbs dropped by more than 5% after being burned for 3,000 hours, failing to meet the requirements of the Electrical and Mechanical Department. Among them, the average brightness of the Sunshine light bulbs dropped by nearly 30%, which can be regarded as a failure of the bulb, which is far from the 30,000-hour lifespan claimed by the manufacturer.
International LED lighting fixtures were recalled
On July 15, Health Canada, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and Cooper Company jointly announced a voluntary recall of more than 1.6 million sets of lamps produced in China.
In the first half of this year, the European Union's Rapid Early Warning System for Non-Food Products (RAPEX) reported a total of 23 cases of substandard lamps from China. The number of notifications was nearly three times that of the same period last year. They were subject to EU sales bans, recalls from consumers and markets, product destruction, and returns. Notifications came from eight EU member states, with the top three countries being Slovakia, Lithuania, and Italy.
The specific characteristics of my country’s LED lamps exported to the EU that have been notified are: First, the number of notified countries has increased. In the first two quarters, 8 countries in the EU notified my country's light strings, namely Slovakia, Lithuania, Italy, the United Kingdom, Slovenia, Spain, and France, 3 more than the same period last year; second, the main reasons for notification were electric shock and fire risks.
Risks, safety incidents, and several pictures of cheap lamps spontaneously igniting are circulating on the Internet.
Countermeasures for self-discipline in the LED lighting industry
Not only the LED lighting industry mentioned above, but also the LED display industry also has chaotic price wars, quality problems and risks of safety accidents.
Companies that initiate price wars often claim that price cuts will benefit consumers and benefit them. This is understandable. However, if the price reduction is suddenly too large, even far below the overall industry cost price level, it will inevitably be suspected of malicious competition.
Before the government departments are not suitable for administrative intervention, local industry organizations should play a self-discipline role and maintain normal competition order. Enterprises should agree on a reasonable price range based on the overall level of cost price. Anything beyond this price range will be regarded as malicious competition and will be jointly sanctioned by industry enterprises. In order to achieve sanctions, deposits can be collected in advance from contracting companies and an internal financing system of industry organizations can be established to have sufficient financial resources to impose internal sanctions on dominant companies, prohibit suppliers from providing production materials to them, and prohibit dealers from acting as agents for their products.
It has become more urgent to promote LED standardization and standard optical components. At present, the LED industry standard system is not yet mature and complete, and there is a large gap in standards; standard technical indicators are lagging behind, and feedback on standard implementation is poor; the LED industry has the characteristics of many types of technologies, multi-disciplinary intersections, and rapid technological updates, making it difficult to ensure compatibility and coordination in standard formulation. In addition, enterprises should actively fulfill their social obligations and responsibilities and establish a complete voluntary recall system. For products that have been sold, once a problem is found in a certain production link, the batch of products may have quality problems, and the problematic products should be recalled immediately to eliminate the impact of defective products on customers or reduce the degree of harm to customers, especially to avoid causing safety accidents.
ANNA