China: A Land of a Lot of People…and Opportunities

Nanjing South train station, a regular weekday afternoon 

Some of you maybe aware that I am currently touring in China for our Lux Futurum promo tour, an initiative from the Virtual Lighting Design Community in collaboration with the Zhurong Awards, more on www.luxfuturum.com. From Shanghai I will go to Beijing next week for the final promo event.

Every time I am in China (I have been coming here since 1995!) I am struck by the enormity of this country, everything is big, massive, large scale. I was In Nanjing yesterday which could be considered a second tier city, yet it has several train stations and the one I arrived and departed from had no less then 24 platform gates! High speed trains that ride at more then 300km/hr carry up to 2000 passengers per train. But prices are very affordable, their first/business class sections are very much like an airline with reclining seats and service. Very comfortable. You just have to make your way through a lot of people that generally are quite rowdy and noisy. Let alone understanding the Chinese announcements. However there is a lot of logic in the madness and no one gets to the platform without identity check or before the train has arrived or is arriving. Safety first! Boarding is done within 10 mins! If you are late you don’t even get to the platform!

Then take their home build cars, many serious competitors to Tesla, but bigger and better! Everything is electronic with most having big A3 sized dashboard, where everything is displayed from lighting to air-conditioning. Most cars have integrated LED lights in the car panelling or door handles changing colour, not just for fun, but for instance turning red when the car stops at a traffic light or in a jam to reiterate not to get out! 

I find it fascinating to see how China has moved from being a country of copiers to a country of leading innovators. China is also moving from quantity to quality with many lighting manufacturers producing high level quality and performance light fittings. The Chinese are inventive and always on the lookout to make money. Everything for a dollar I always say, and it shows in their inventiveness and at times daring explorations to create something new. China is a land of many people and therefore a lot of competition and as such inventiveness to be the first and the best is nearly a necessity to survive. 

More than 80 to 90% of the lighting manufacturers are from China with our global brands also sourcing and manufacturing directly or through OEMs from China. Logically the same is happening with so many other industry sectors, hence I always excitedly look forward to my China trips to see what new opportunity is now being taken on! Lighting wise my observation is what they promote as AIoT, short for AI of Things…already we see it coming through elsewhere in the world.