Inventory of the top ten keywords of the laser industry in 2019: handheld welding, high-power, ultra-fast laser. Who is the way out for the laser industry?

In 2019, too much happened in the laser industry. Not long ago, OFweek Laser.com reviewed the top ten hot events in the laser industry in 2019. Today, the editor will select ten key words from the hot topics in the laser industry in the past year, summarize the laser industry in 2019, and look forward to 2020.

Listed

When it comes to keywords in the laser industry in 2019, the word listing cannot be avoided. 2019 is a year of intense listing of laser companies. With the opening of the sci-tech innovation board, a large number of laser companies gathered on the sci-tech innovation board. Laser-related companies such as Harbin Xinguang Optoelectronics, Shenzhen Guangfeng Technology, Shanghai Baichu Electronics, Shenzhen Jept Optoelectronics, Shenzhen Chuangxin Laser, etc. Laser, Hymson Laser, etc. are still in the IPO queue.

In addition to the Science and Technology Innovation Board, the ChiNext market has also benefited. On May 17, Dier Laser held a listing bell on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and officially entered the ChiNext. OFweek Laser.com believes that the recognition of the laser industry by the capital market will become a strong driving force for the prosperity and development of the laser industry and accelerate the process of domestic substitution of imports. However, the attention of capital may also lead to blind investment, pursuit of book returns and other risky behaviors. . How should the double-edged sword of capital be used? Which companies can expand the team of listed laser companies in 2020? It remains to be seen.

Price war

In 2019, the industrial fiber laser market has fallen into a full-scale price war. The gross profit margins of laser giants with core device independent capabilities such as IPG, Ruike, and Chuangxin have also fallen sharply, and the lives of small and medium-sized enterprises are also more difficult. From the comparison of the gross profit margins of IPG, Ruike, and Chuangxin, it can be seen that the gross profit margin of fiber lasers began to drop sharply in the fourth quarter of 2018, and the gross profit margin of each company has basically stabilized in the third quarter of 2019.

Comparison of gross profit margin of IPG, Ruike and Chuangxin

According to public data, OFweek laser network mapping

Dr. Dapeng Yan, the founder of Raycus Laser, said in an interview with OFweek Laser Network: “The current market competition is too fierce, everyone is fighting a price war, and gross profit margins are declining, but if there is no profit to support R&D investment, it will be very detrimental to the development of the industry. Nowadays, several domestic laser companies have been listed or have passed the meeting smoothly. Everyone has higher requirements for profits, and market competition has gradually approached a point of equilibrium. From the three quarterly reports disclosed by Raycus Laser, we can see that our gross profit margin has basically been Stabilize, I believe the price war is nearing its end."

OFweek Laser.com believes that although the price war makes companies difficult in the short term, the reduction in laser costs will help the development of more application areas. Laser technology has very broad application prospects. Cost reduction and technological upgrading will bring a broader market to the laser industry.

Hand-held laser welding

In 2018, the laser cleaning market was heating up, and in 2019, the handheld laser welding market ushered in an explosion. Similar to laser cleaning, hand-held laser welding equipment has low cost, simple and flexible operation, beautiful and firm welding seam, and can adapt to the welding of complex workpieces of various specifications and various irregular shapes. It can also realize outdoor welding of kitchenware, doors and windows, etc. . It can be said that the emergence of hand-held laser welding has solved many difficulties in the current metal welding market and has its own "explosive" attribute. OFweek Laser Network believes that the outbreak of laser cleaning and handheld laser welding market is inseparable from the downward price of lasers. It is precisely because the cost of the light source is reduced that more application requirements can be developed.

The handheld laser welding market is developing rapidly, but due to the low technical threshold of handheld laser welding equipment, almost all laser companies have a layout. It should be noted that although handheld welding equipment is easy to manufacture and low in cost, safety issues still require attention. At present, 500W-2000W continuous fiber lasers are commonly used in handheld welding equipment. If the protection measures are not in place, it will cause harm to the human body.

X million watts high power

Since the emergence of 10,000 watt lasers and 10,000 watt laser cutting machines in 2017, the 10,000 watt high-power market has become the forefront of the game between lasers and laser equipment manufacturers. In 2018, Han's Laser, Pentium Laser, IPG, and Pretzer cooperated to lead the 15-kilowatt cutting equipment market. Domestic laser manufacturers such as Ruike and Chuangxin also realized the industrial application of 10,000-watt lasers. In 2019, the laser power frequency reached a new high. 25,000 kilowatts, 30,000 watts, and 35,000 kilowatts were successively exhibited at various exhibitions. By the time of the Shanghai Industry Fair in September, the 10,000-watt continuous fiber laser almost became Standard configuration of a laser manufacturer.

In terms of laser equipment, there is also the phenomenon of continuously increasing power. At the Beijing National Machinery Exhibition in April, Han's Pentium simultaneously released a 20,000 watt laser cutting machine. By September, new product launch conferences for 30,000 watt and 36 kW laser cutting machines were also held successively. As a key component of laser cutting, the laser cutting head has also rapidly moved from the 10,000 watt era to the X 10,000 watt era.

At present, in the domestic laser cutting market, high-power laser cutting heads are basically the world of German company Pretzt, which has also been leading the development of high-power laser cutting heads. At the beginning of 2019, Pretzert completed the development of a 20,000 watt cutting head, which was released to the market in September after being tested in the small batch market. Also in September, IPG, a leading fiber laser company, launched a 30,000-watt fiber laser cutting solution including cutting heads. Polonium Automation in Suzhou and Shanghai Jiaqiang Automation also simultaneously launched 30,000-watt cutting heads.

OFweek Laser Network believes that exploring higher-power laser applications has positive significance for the future development of laser technology, but blindly follow the trend, one-sided pursuit of heights, and even without functional components, only relying on assembling lasers and machine tools to announce a high-profile "technical breakthrough" "The flamboyant style is harmful to the development of the industry without any benefit." Companies should pay more attention to how to make products more stable, thinking about how to improve cutting quality, reduce maintenance rate, and truly make users feel the efficiency improvements brought about by product upgrades.

Intelligent production line, integrated equipment

With the continuous increase of labor costs and the continuous advancement of intelligent manufacturing, the market's demand for intelligent production lines and integrated equipment is increasing. In July 2019, Han's Laser Intelligent Equipment Group grandly launched its intelligent welding line products; in November, the large-format laser cutting and welding integrated machine built by Huagong Laser for the Indian large-scale commercial vehicle and train parts manufacturer OMAX Group also completed the acceptance ; In addition, the number of intelligent production lines and integrated equipment has also greatly increased at the exhibition. For example, Bystronic demonstrated the entire automated production unit from stock storage, laser cutting to bending and palletizing, and Primabao demonstrated the laser punching compound machine. And flexible automatic solutions, etc.

OFweek Laser Network believes that simply relying on the assembly of higher power lasers is not the future development direction of laser equipment. What companies should really pay attention to is how to combine laser technology with software and hardware, artificial intelligence, automation and other different fields, and finally realize the terminal equipment. Intelligent and unmanned.

Ultrafast laser

Some people say that fiber lasers represent the present and ultrafast lasers represent the future. In recent years, the development speed of ultrafast lasers has also been much higher than the overall growth rate of the laser industry. In 2019, there are more than 30 companies engaged in the R&D and production of ultrafast lasers. It is estimated that the domestic ultrafast laser market will reach 2.136 billion yuan in 2020.

Ultrafast laser market size and forecast

Data source: OFweek Industry Research Institute

The ultra-fast laser can focus to the ultra-fine space area, with extremely high peak power and extremely short laser pulses, and will not affect the surrounding materials in the space involved during the processing, so it can achieve "ultra-fine processing" , Usually used for cutting brittle materials such as glass, sapphire, ceramics, etc., and has a wide range of applications in consumer electronics, medical and other fields.

In 2019, the biggest hot news about ultrafast lasers is undoubtedly that Raycus Laser acquired Guoshen Optoelectronics and officially entered the ultrafast laser market. In addition, Yawei acquired the South Korean LIS company to vigorously develop the precision laser processing equipment business; Huagong Laser launched the optical blade series cutting machine, using picosecond light source to lead the glass cutting technology; Huari Laser separated from Huagong Technology and introduced multiple resources to accelerate the variety R&D and industrialization of ultrafast light sources; laser manufacturers such as Coherent and Anyang have also launched a variety of ultrafast lasers to prepare for the future market. OFweek Laser Network believes that with the arrival of the 5G era, ultrafast lasers will usher in greater development opportunities.

Lidar

2019 is not only the first year of 5G, but also the first year of commercialization of the autonomous driving industry. While major automakers are constantly rushing to make the timetable for the commercialization of autonomous driving, the lidar, known as the "eyes of unmanned cars," has also ushered in a rapid growth opportunity. But the hottest topic of lidar in 2019 is not growth, but the exit from the Chinese market. Velodyne, known as the originator of lidar, was revealed in December this year that it was laying off employees in China. The Asia-Pacific office only retains some positions related to major customers, channels, and technical support. The staff will be reduced from about 20 to 10, and Restore the sales model from the direct sales model to the "agent model" that has just entered China.

OFweek Laser Network believes that Velodyne's withdrawal from the Chinese market is related to the rise of Chinese competitors and the rigidity of its own services. In fact, the market growth rate and capital injection of lidar are still very gratifying. In terms of financing, the Israeli company Innoviz Technologies raised US$170 million, the highest value in 2019, but this record was broken by Hesai Technology’s US$173 million financing in January 2020. OFweek Laser Network reviewed the main financing situation of the lidar market in 2019 in the article "Inventory of Top Ten Financing Events in the Lidar Field in 2019". In terms of corporate participation, Huawei announced in October that it would develop its own lidar. The lidar launched by Livox, a subsidiary of DJI, was also unveiled not long ago. Bosch also announced that its first car-gauge lidar has entered the mass production development stage. It can be said that the lidar has reached the eve of mass production.

Performance decline

The originator of laser radar withdrew from the Chinese market due to operating pressure, and companies in the industrial laser field are also facing downward pressure. After the results of the first three quarters of this year were released, OFweek Laser.com checked the performance of 17 listed companies including Han's Laser, Huagong Technology, and Raycus Laser. Through the analysis of the article, we can see that the revenue growth of 7 companies including Han's Laser, Weihong, Zhengye Technology, and JPT has decreased year-on-year, while the net profit of 8 companies including Zhengye Technology, Han's Laser, Xinguang Optoelectronics, and Guangku Technology has decreased year-on-year. .

OFweek Laser Network believes that the laser industry is still in the golden decade of development. The fluctuations in 2019 are related to the rapid growth in the past few years, not the decline after the industry reaches its peak. Although the industry is also facing problems such as homogeneous competition and rapid price decline, as a series of new applications and new markets are developed, it will bring more growth momentum to the laser industry.

Union, cooperation

The increasing pressure on business operations makes it inevitable to stay together for warmth. Enterprise alliances and school-research-enterprise cooperation are also a big buzzword in the laser industry in 2019. In 2019, Han's Laser has successively signed strategic cooperation agreements with Inovance Technologies, Wittenstein, Huazhi Intelligent, Tencent Cloud, China Unicom and other companies; Huagong Laser has successively joined hands with Dongfang Equipment and Ruili Group; Raycus Laser and Harbin Institute of Technology and Harbin Institute of Technology The welding company signed a tripartite strategic cooperation agreement; Kingway Laser also reached a strategic cooperation with TRUMPF (China) Co., Ltd. in Germany. For details, please refer to the article "Inventory of Cooperation among Top Ten Companies in the Laser Circle in 2019".

In addition, Han's Laser and Shenzhen University of Technology jointly established a laser intelligent manufacturing joint laboratory, Dake Laser and Central South University jointly established a base for talent innovation and entrepreneurship and scientific and technological achievements transformation, TRUMPF and Shanghai Jiaotong University established the Sino-German Joint Laser Application Center, led by Peking University "Laser-driven multi-beam facility" project cooperation memorandum was signed in France, the Chinese Academy of Sciences-Russian Academy of Sciences Laser Joint Laboratory was inaugurated, Shandong Academy of Sciences and the Lithuanian Physical Science and Technology Research Center jointly discussed the construction of "China-Lithuanian Advanced Laser Technology Joint Innovation The signing of a series of cooperation agreements including the establishment of the China-Greece Joint Research Center by the Institute of Optoelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Greek Laser Research Institute has also provided a good foundation for laser technology exchanges and complementary resources. OFweek Laser Network believes that under the promotion of many cooperation agreements, my country's laser technology and laser industry will usher in faster and better development.

Acquisition

In addition to joint cooperation, acquisitions and mergers are also powerful choices for companies to expand their business territory. In 2019, IPG acquired Padtec's submarine network business unit in order to capture the huge increase in the global submarine cable network market; Guangyunda acquired Chengdu Tongyu Aviation to cut into the military industry and lay out aerospace applications; Oona Technology acquired its supplier France 3SP, in order to realize the diversification of optical product solutions and chip/laser product solutions; Raycus Laser acquired Guoshen Optoelectronics to formally enter the ultra-fast laser market, Yawei shares acquired South Korea’s LIS to enhance the company’s strength in the field of precision laser processing, nLIGHT acquires Nutronics to open up a new market for directional energy...

OFweek Laser.com reviewed the major mergers and acquisitions in 2019 in the article "Ten Major Mergers and Acquisitions in the Laser Industry in 2019". It can be seen from this that the integration of the industrial chain is no longer the main direction of corporate acquisitions. OFweek Laser Network believes that the existing market has entered the Red Sea, and the development of a new application market is the key to companies getting out of homogeneous competition and getting rid of low-price strategy dependence.