Automotive Lighting Industry: Technological Iteration, Intelligent Upgrade, and Global Competitive Landscape

(1) Overview of the Global Automotive Lighting Industry

In recent years, driven by multiple factors such as the transformation of energy structure in the passenger car market, rapid development of intelligent technology, and continuous penetration of LED technology in the automotive industry, the global automotive lighting market has maintained a steady development trend. In the short to medium term, with the gradual application of new light source technologies such as OLED, mini LED, and laser, as well as advanced lighting technologies such as ADB (adaptive high beam) and DLP (digital light processing), the intelligence level and application scenarios of automotive lighting systems will be significantly improved and expanded, thereby promoting the growth of the value of bicycle automotive lighting systems. The global automotive lighting market is expected to continue expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 4.7% from 2021 to 2026, with a projected market size of $39.5 billion by 2026.

Global automotive lighting market output value from 2021 to 2026

From the perspective of global competition in the automotive lighting market, the top five automotive lighting manufacturing companies by 2024 are Koito, Valeo, Marelli, Hella, and Stanray, with a combined market share of over 60% and a high concentration of industry leaders.

From the perspective of technological development path, with the increasing demand for intelligence and safety, LED headlights have gradually increased their application penetration rate in the global automotive lighting market due to their advantages of high light intensity, low power consumption, long service life, and high flexibility.

(2) Overview of the domestic automotive lighting industry

The market size of the domestic automotive lighting industry will reach 80.9 billion yuan in 2024, with an average annual growth rate of about 9.7% in the past four years. The growth is due to the expansion of automobile production and sales volume and the increase in the value of individual vehicles (the penetration rate of LED headlights exceeds 81%, and high-end products such as laser headlights are growing rapidly). Technologically, LED dominates the market, with laser, MicroLED and other iterative acceleration, and intelligent functions (ADB, projection interaction) becoming a trend. In the competitive landscape, local enterprises such as Huayu Vision and Xingyu Co., Ltd. have risen, foreign investment has shrunk, and domestic substitution in the supply chain (chips, modules, equipment) continues to advance. Policies (energy efficiency standards, new energy dividends) and consumer demand (personalization, aftermarket potential) jointly drive industry development.

2. Future Development Trends of Automotive Lighting Industry

(1) The penetration rate of LED is gradually increasing, and new light source technologies such as µ AFS and Micro LED are gradually being promoted and applied. The automotive lighting system has entered the era of "high pixel"

In the short to medium term, LED lighting is expected to achieve further market penetration due to its excellent light intensity performance, long service life characteristics, and low power consumption advantages. At the same time, with the continuous iteration and scaling up of intelligent technologies such as autonomous driving, high pixel intelligent automotive lighting and visual control systems will become one of the core directions for the development of future automotive lighting technology. The intelligent lighting system for automobiles, based on new light sources such as OLED, Micro LED, µ AFS (Micro Adaptive Front Lighting System), MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems), will gradually complete market application verification and achieve mass production implementation. Especially driven by innovation in cutting-edge technologies such as digital light processing (DLP), the pixel count of a single light source in automotive headlights has exceeded the million level, marking the official entry of automotive lighting systems into the "high pixel" technology development stage.

(2) ADB, DLP, BladeScan and other intelligent technologies are gradually penetrating, improving the safety and intelligence of automotive lighting

According to the "Energy saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0" vision of "Safe, Efficient, and Smart Travel", the trend towards intelligent passenger cars is driving the upgrading of automotive lighting systems in terms of stability, energy efficiency, intelligence, and safety. It is necessary to achieve dynamic adjustment of lighting, driving prediction prompts, and other functions, which forces the improvement of control module functionality and integration. ADB, DLP, BladeScan and other intelligent technologies are accelerating their penetration. Currently, the ADB penetration rate of passenger car headlights is about 9%, and DLP penetration rate is about 1%. It is expected to increase to 30% and 5% respectively by the end of 2025.

(3) The design of intelligent interactive functions for automotive lighting is gradually maturing, and "lighting" is moving towards the "expression" stage

Against the backdrop of the increasingly perfect semiconductor industry chain and accelerated transformation of the automotive energy structure, the level of intelligence in passenger cars continues to improve, and automotive lighting and visual control systems are evolving from traditional lighting and signal indication functions to more intelligent "emotional expression" functions. Currently, the product matrix of automotive lighting systems is constantly enriching, covering multiple categories such as headlights, taillights, ambient lights, welcome lights, and grille lights, while the demand for customized design is significantly increasing. In the future, while consolidating the basic lighting and signal functions, the automotive lighting system will focus on enhancing the human-machine interaction experience, further improving driving safety, operational comfort, and user pleasure through intelligent upgrades.

(4) The advantages of Chinese enterprises in research and development and manufacturing are gradually emerging, and the localization process continues to advance

From the perspective of the global automotive lighting market, international companies represented by Germany's Hella and Japan's Koito have occupied more than half of the market share in the past decade. In recent years, China's position in the global automotive and automotive parts industry has become increasingly prominent, especially in the field of new energy vehicles. China has been the country with the highest production and sales volume of new energy vehicles in the world for several consecutive years. At the same time, with the gradual maturity of China's semiconductor industry chain, the ability of local automotive lighting system manufacturing enterprises to develop and combine software and hardware technologies is gradually improving. In addition, with advantages such as responsiveness and manufacturing costs, a group of local enterprises represented by Huayu Vision are gradually emerging from the encirclement. The pace of localization in the future automotive lighting market is expected to further accelerate.

3. Industry technical level and technical characteristics

From the perspective of industry technology level and development characteristics, intelligence, energy conservation, and safety have become the core development directions in the field of automotive lighting. Currently, highly intelligent, highly integrated, and high-precision automotive intelligent lighting and visual control technologies are still mainly dominated by international leading enterprises. After years of development, China's automotive lighting industry has cultivated a group of advantageous enterprises with a complete independent research and development system, and has made important breakthroughs in some high-end technology fields; However, in terms of overall industry technological level, there is still a certain gap compared to developed countries abroad.

4. The competitive landscape of the automotive lighting industry

The main participating companies in the global automotive lighting industry include foreign companies such as Koito, Valeo, Marelli, Hella, and Stanley, as well as domestic companies represented by Xingyu Corporation and Huayu Vision. In the field of automotive light control module subdivision, there are mainly companies such as Keboda Technology Co., Ltd., Changzhou Tongbao Optoelectronics Co., Ltd., Shanghai Chenlan Optoelectronic Devices Co., Ltd., Shanghai Xinyao Electronics Co., Ltd., Jiangsu Xinli Electronics Co., Ltd. In the field of automotive light subdivision, the main enterprises include Changzhou Xingyu Automotive Light Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Jinye Automotive Parts Co., Ltd., Nanning Liaowang Automotive Light Co., Ltd.