In recent years, the LED lighting industry reshuffle intensifies as the industry is highly competitive. Therefore, many companies increase the investments in other businesses, or pursue the development of product diversification, or shift to niche markets. In such environment, some enterprises different from the rest are still the “clean stream” in the industry. WELLMAX is one of them, and the company is also known as the "LED bulb expert".

WELLMAX is a company that does not take the usual way. How has it always focused on the development of LED bulb products for 30 years? With questions and curiosity, LEDinside’s editor walked into WELLMAX's booth during Hong Kong International Lighting Fair (Autumn Edition) on October 27th, 2017 and interviewed WELLMAX’s Chairman Wang Yamin.

WELLMAX’s Chairman Wang Yamin is being interviewed. (Image: WELLMAX)

Regarding the growth of WELLMAX, Wang Yamin says that WELLMAX has been committed to the research and development of LED bulb products. The company gains recognition from customers because of its concentration on products. In March 2016, WELLMAX became China's first strategic partner with Samsung Electronics. In April this year, WELLMAX was awarded the title of "Annual Most Valuable Partner" by Samsung. In addition, WELLMAX became a supplier of the world's largest supermarket chain. Wang Yamin says that the recognition from these partners is the best testimonial of WELLMAX.

Speaking of the cooperation with Samsung, Wang Yamin expressed that it has been a mutually beneficial partnership. Samsung offers some of the most comprehensive LED technology development guidelines, which helped WELLMAX to maintain the stable and premium product quality under the competitive landscape. WELLMAX’s industry leadership position has also helped Samsung to gain empirical experience in the Chinese manufacturing market.

According to Wang Yamin, the future cooperation areas between WELLMAX and Samsung will be wider and deeper. WELLMAX’s premium product lines will continue to adopt the newest Samsung LED chips into the design. By strengthening cooperation with Samsung, WELLMAX will provide more quality-assured products to its customers and help its customers to gain competitive-edge in their countries.

Focusing on Foreign Markets and Adhering to High Quality Product Line

In recent years, the China LED bulb market has continued its rapid development, and many enterprises strive to seize the domestic market share; however, WELLMAX fully focuses on oversea markets. WELLMAX started from the European market in the early days, but it has been expanding market presence in Asian markets in recent years because Asian countries have just taken off on the transition from traditional lightings to LEDs, and consumer acceptance of LED products is gradually expanding. At the same time, benefiting from the China's “One Belt and One Road” initiative, the countries in the East-Asian Economic Circle have great potential for future development. WELLMAX will closely follow “One Belt and One Road” initiative to contribute to the national economic development and positively carry out cooperation with top lighting brands in each market along the route.

Looking at its product structure, WELLMAX targets the indoor lighting sector, and LED bulbs gain the highest degree of focus. WELLMAX is also working on developing better and newer smart technology products. According to LEDinside, WELLMAX introduced a product line of filament LED lamps on the second half of this year. These products are equipped with Samsung filament LED chips.

It is reported that the threshold of foreign markets is getting higher, while the requirements for product certification are constantly changing. Wang Yamin says that this is a big challenge for the company. In order to meet the requirements, WELLMAX is investing millions of budget each year in obtaining and maintaining certification of different countries. Certification qualifies the company for entering a target country. When the challenge is overcome, the professional competence of its engineers will improve, so whether a company can meet market requirement is a good benchmark to analyze a company’s learning ability.

Regarding the highly competitive market and the issue of serious product homogeneity, Wang Yamin says that WELLMAX has always adhered to its own positioning to ensure quality consistency and it will not participate in price war. It is known that WELLMAX has maintained a growth of more than 30% for several years and will allocate more budget for R & D and marketing in the future.

WELLMAX’s Booth in 2017 Hong Kong International Lighting Fair (Autumn Edition) (Image: WELLMAX)

Devoting to LED Bulbs to Become an International Brand

According to Wang Yamin, the LED industry is still in its beginning stage. On one hand, the European and American markets have developed rapidly and are more mature; on the other hand, there are huge market potentials in Africa, Asia and South American countries. As long as each Chinese company and manufacturer clears its own goal, insists on quality and pursues product differentiation, the future development of the industry will be fast and healthy.

Under such circumstances, WELLMAX’s revenues in the first half of this year has increased by more than 40% over the same period of last year. From the perspective of this lighting fair, the overall growth for this year is expected to be more than 50%. Wang Yamin says that although the current scale of WELLMAX is relatively smaller than many MNC conglomerates, but building a world-class brand is a strategic goal of the company. It may take a long time to achieve the goal, but WELLMAX has faith to march forward one step at a time. Now many foreign capitals hope to bring WELLMAX to the capital market as soon as possible; however, WELLMAX desires to become a down-to-earth and century-old company, so its priority is to focus on LED bulbs and become the No.1 LED brand in China.