Competition in the LED Sector Is Not Slowing Down
We conducted a comprehensive interview with Oner Gunesdogdu, Ozdisan Elektronik LED Technologies Sales Manager, about the components sector and LED technologies. Gunesdogdu, talked about many subjects from his joining to Ozdisan Elektronik to his experience in this sector, from the market share of the sector in Türkiye and the world to e-commerce, and also shared important information about R&D.
Oner, can we get to know you a bit please?
I was born in Bolu in 1980. I completed my primary and secondary education in Duzce. After graduating from Duzce Arsal Anatolian High School in 1998, I came to Istanbul for my higher education. I am a graduate of Yildiz Technical University Electronics and Communication Engineering. I started my professional life as an R&D Software and Hardware Engineer at a company named Elektronik Dizgi Sanayi A.S. I am married and have a 3.5 years old son named Batu.
How long have you been working at Ozdisan Elektronik, how did your paths cross?
Ozdisan Elektronik was one of the component suppliers of the company I worked for. I first met Ozdisan in this way. After completing my military service, I decided to advance my career in sales and started working at Ozdisan Elektronik as a Field Application Engineer in 2008. The reason I prefer Ozdisan is that it is a domestic and growing company, and that I can make a difference here by contributing more. I believe that I have been successful with the responsibilities I have assumed in new business areas such as PCB and PCBA lighting fields.
Could you share a brief information about the activities you are carrying out within you job definition? Can we learn about your business processes?
I have been the manager of the LED technologies department since 2014. Initially, we were only interested in general lighting related products, but over time almost all LED products came under the responsibility of our department. I spend most of my time managing the sales organization and relationships with existing suppliers, determining pricing policies, and researching new suppliers and business areas. I try to devote one or two days of the week to customer visits with my sales representative colleagues.
Can you also tell us about your product groups with LED technology?
Our main product groups are LEDs, LED modules, lenses and reflectors, aluminum coolers and LED drivers. We produce LED modules and aluminum coolers at our own facilities and usually as tailor-made products. In other product groups such as LEDs and drivers, we are trying to keep our stocks as constantly and full as possible, based on the market needs.
“Our goal in the coming period is to increase our turnover in Türkiye as well as creating turnover abroad.”
Which brands’ products do you represent in the field of LED technology?
We are working with the leading companies in the sector in the field of LED technology. We are the distributor of Cree, Seoul, Semiconductor and Lextar LEDs field. Lifud in the LED drivers field and Carclo, LEDiL and iLens in the Lenses and Reflectors fields are among the companies we work with.
Do you export these products?
Our export is developing daily. Currently, our main export items are LEDs, lenses and modules. Most of our customers abroad consist of companies that first started working with us on LED purchasing and then tried to meet their needs with us in other product groups. Of course, our service quality and reliability play a major role in this. Our primary goal is to increase the number of such companies in our portfolio and increase the share of export in our total turnover.
Can you give information about your R&D activities related to LED Lighting at Ozdisan?
We have a general R&D department at Ozdisan Elektronik. In addition, we have two technical friends responsible for LED R&D within the LED department. They are responsible for both supporting LED customers in the field and making product suggestions and module designs that can make us stand out from the competition by searching for newly launched products. When the project contains a “controlling application”, we get support from the general R&D department.
Let’s talk a little about the sectors. Which sectors do you mainly sell your products to?
As is the case for the whole world, general-lighting is the main sector of the LED industry in Türkiye. General-lighting customers make up the majority of our customer portfolio, but recently the plant growing, furniture lighting, automotive, security and medical sectors have also been increasing their shares daily.
So, is there a sector that has gained momentum recently?
General lighting will continue to take the largest share of our turnover for a long time, but we do not exclude other sectors from our focus. For example, furniture lighting is an important sector for us. In the recent period, we have been receiving a lot of demand for plant cultivation. This sector may be in its infancy period, but we anticipate that it will emerge as a major market in the future. On the other hand, the use of ultraviolet LEDs is increasing daily, especially in medical and industrial applications.
Will there be any new products that you will add to your existing LED lighting products range recently? What would you like to say about the brands that Ozdisan have assumed the distributorship of recently?
Recently, we have added Lexstar to our distributorship range. The company is the only LED manufacturer in Taiwan that produces chips in-house. Since it has a large production capacity, it has the flexibility to produce products with the desired characteristics. In addition to lighting LEDs, it has also products such as infrared, ultraviolet, display and automotive LEDs and VCSEL (laser made on the vertical cavity surface) for 3D detection. This cooperation has paved the way for us to reach a strong position in sectors other than general lighting. Cree, on the other hand, aims to carry its market leadership in the high power LED group also to the medium and low power LED groups as well. Accordingly, the J-Series product family, launched last year, has now achieved the desired performance and price levels. With Cree’s brand prestige and optimum price/performance ratio, we anticipate that the J series 2835, 3030 and 5050 LEDs will quickly have a huge market share by the 2nd quarter of the year. Our other LED manufacturer, Seoul, developed the SUNLIKE® product family for human-centered lighting applications about two years ago. Today, this product family has started to be used in plant cultivation as it offers a spectrum very similar to sunlight. We anticipate that SUNLIKE® 3030 LEDs will take their place among the most popular products of 2019. And finally, Lifud, which has been producing LED drivers for only indoor use by now, started to produce outdoor drivers as well last month. We will release this product family to the market, which is offered with ENEC certificate and 5-year manufacturer’s warranty.
Can you explain how you left the year 2018 behind? In this context, what are your goals for the end of 2019 and beyond?
The second half of 2018 was not very pleasant for us, as for everyone, due to the economic turmoil in our country. Therefore, our turnover in the second half was also slightly below our expectations. We started 2019 well and were able to reach our goals for the first quarter. We are hopeful that the market will recover further in the middle of the second quarter. I believe that with the introduction of our new products, we will end 2019 with results above our goals and estimations.
Are there any information or warnings you would like to share about LED lighting products?
The LED sector is perhaps the most competitive area of the electronic components sector. With the continuous increase in supply and demand, and decrease in production costs, the product prices decrease further and the competition gets even more fierce. We observe that some manufacturers have to make moves such as using lower-cost contract manufacturers or turning to lower-quality materials in order to continue to survive in this competition. The impact of these on product performance is often hidden in long-term data that customers may overlook in the first place. Therefore, my advice to lighting manufacturers who aim to become a well-established brand is to accept datasheet values only as a reference and assess the actual performance and cost of products by comparing test reports such as LM-80 of the supplied components with the data they will obtain in real environmental tests that they will carry out on their own products.
Can you tell us about the sales momentum of LED products in e-commerce?
We mainly receive requests about the LEDs used in LED drivers, COB and plant cultivation via our e-commerce page. On the other hand, the sale of LED products requires intensive customer support due to its unique structure. Therefore, we do not aim to achieve a high turnover on the LED technologies side. For us, our e-commerce page is more like a “showcase” that invites customers to us. When an order is received via our website, our customer representatives contact the customer and make them our new customers.
What is the biggest challenge in the sector?
Intense competition in the industry seems to be the biggest problem experienced by LED lighting manufacturers globally. Many big companies stepped into this sector but had to back out. In Türkiye, on the other hand, in a sector where the added value is low and the competition is fierce, the import of low-quality products from the Far East cannot be completely prevented despite all the measures taken, causing the local manufacturers suffer a lot. Excessive competition under these conditions often leads manufacturers to work with very low profits, sometimes with no profit at all, resulting in weak capital accumulation, and therefore decrease in R&D and technological investments.
How would you describe Ozdisan Elektronik’s position in Türkiye and its brand perception on customer side?
As you know, Ozdisan is a well-established and leading company in the electronic components sector. This year we will celebrate our 39th anniversary. The driving force that made Ozdisan so successful so far has always been the trust and service quality it offered to its customers. We are always trying to protect our competitiveness without compromising our service quality, and take care to protect our leading position, with investments such as our e-commerce portal and storage areas aiming to meet the industry’s need for access to information and products in the fastest way as possible. We import reliable products to Türkiye that we can always stand behind, do not step aside when our customers need assistance, and spend intensive hours to deliver their orders exactly on time. In this way, we create a value beyond the product. That’s why, although our business may look like it’s just selling “electronic components”, we’re actually selling a “service”.
