Chinese Industry Leaders Call for Rational Competition

Chinese Industry Leaders Call for Rational Competition

“We have to stop killing each other,” said Dinglong’s chairman Zhu Shuangquan (pictured) to 120 Chinese imaging supplies industry leaders gathered in Zhuhai.

The Dinglong Group arranged for the leaders to attend its New Products 2021 event on April 23 and to provide a leadership opportunity for CEOs to thrash out hot industry issues between them.

“We should look at competition more rationally,” said Guobin Cao who spoke on behalf of the Zhongshan Industry Association.

“Competition is needed in business,” he said, “but excessive competition will bring destructive damage to the industry ecosystem.”

They were not alone.

Print-Rite’s founding Chairman Arnald Ho (pictured) said, “The current aggressive competition is completely unhealthy and will lead to us killing ourselves at the end of the day if there is no change at all.”

Ninestar’s Jason Wang, HGO’s Xuewen Wang and Innopat’s Helen Duan also talked about automation, innovation, overcapacity and price wars and how each contributes to, and impacts competition.

According to Cao (pictured), the only way to end price-war suffering was to have all players channelling their collective energies into enhancing efficiency while reducing costs through precision production and supply chain collaboration. “Instead of killing each other, we should focus on customer demands and product life-cycle costs. This might be the only possible way for sustainable development,” he said.

Since 2015, price wars have become the only way to win the competition. As a result, the industry has seen a flood of identical products produced to the point of overcapacity. In addition, the market has shifted to the medium-to-low end in terms of quality making it difficult to achieve “brand premium.”

In order to reduce costs, supply chain companies have mainly focused on looking for alternative materials. At the same time, finished product companies have focused on cheaper, alternative, compatible components and invested in automation production lines. After several years of competition, cartridges become lighter and components become thinner. The suppliers, the manufacturers, the distributors and consumers are all facing a higher risk.

In 2021, finished products and components sell for one-tenth of the price than when the industry was at its peak. Price wars have “gobbled” up all the profit in each sector of the industry chain. Except, possibly for chips and color toner.

A panel discussion picked up on the topic of the crises and opportunities confronting the Chinese aftermarket industry. Hosted by Benjamin Yang, General Manager of Dinglong Imaging Division, other leaders on the panel included Haiyong Du from Beijing Laser Hi-Technology Co., Ltd, Weidong Gu from Jiangxi Yibo Electronics Co., Ltd, Xiaoguang Wang from Zhuhai Orink Infotech Co., Ltd, and Zhidong Wang from Zhuhai Duyi Innovative Technology Co., Ltd.

Orink’s Xiaoguang Wang said “homogeneous competition” should not lead to a “monopolized market” but rather provide a more prosperous and diversified market. He called on the bigger companies to take responsibility to lead the industry to grow in a more healthy manner. “Small and middle-sized companies should have self-discipline awareness and action to maintain orderly and healthy competition in the industry. More importantly, the cooperation and collaboration of all companies within the industry should be fundamental to all future trends.

Wang also emphasized the importance of innovation in automation production, product technology (especially patent innovation), and sales channels (such as e-commerce and channel branding construction, etc.). He also urged the industry to intensively cultivate and strive for differentiation, diversity and specialty. Wang said, “If we dig deeper, we will find more new opportunities and new demands. In facing this crisis, we need to enhance management capability, reinforce risk control awareness in order to guarantee long-term development with stability.”

Dinglong’s Commitment

Zhu spoke about Dinglong’s long-term commitment to the imaging supplies industry. He was followed by Guilin Xiao (Dinglong vice president), Martin Wang, (Vice General Manager of Dinglong Image Division) and Honghui Zhou, (Chief Engineer and Product General Manager of Dinglong Imaging Division). They shared the latest toner technology, new cloud upgrade solutions and in-depth thinking on patents.

In his exclusive interview with RT Media, Benjamin Young (pictured) said the focus of the Dinglong Imaging Division, which incorporates a number of well-known companies and brands, is to provide quality products to customers all over the world, create profit for the group and contribute to the healthy development of the industry.

The Dinglong Group include Hubei Dinglong Chemical Co., Ltd (Dinglong Chemical), Zhuhai Mito Color Imaging Co., Ltd (Mito), Shenzhen Retech Technology Co., Ltd (ReTech), Hangzhou Chipjet Technology Co., Ltd. (Chipjet), Speed Infotech Holdings Limited (Speed) and Zhuhai Topcolor Image Products Inc (Topcolor).

(More details of the individual players in the Dinglong Group can be found here).

In dealing with the hot issues facing the industry, Young made the following comments:

Toners: “Toner is the foundation of Dinglong. Dinglong disrupted the traditional printing consumables industry by breaking the long-term monopoly held by international chemical toner manufacturers;”
Rollers and OPCs: “In order to fill the gap of high-quality color toner cartridge roller accessories, Dinglong established Dinglong New Materials over a period of 15 years and adopted a fully automated production method. Dinglong’s roller accessories provide a product guarantee for high-quality drums;”
Chips: Chipjet is one of the industry’s leading companies focusing on chip design and development. Recently, we launched the latest smart cloud upgrade solution, providing compatible consumable manufacturers and end customers with a firmware upgrade solution that reduces costs and increases efficiency;”
Patents: “Dinglong as a group attaches great importance to patented products. The patent team is a heavily invested newcomer to the industry. Honghui Zhou, our chief engineer of Dinglong Imaging Division, has been engaged in product research for more than 20 years and has a deep understanding of the products. The compatible industry is impacted by the OEM chip updates. Consequently, the requirement for innovation is becoming more complex for supply chains and finished product manufacturers. However, industry enterprises must continue to innovate if they are to make breakthroughs in patents, production processes, efficiency management, and channel models. Dinglong will continue to innovate as long as the industry is present;”
Automation: “Automation can improve production efficiency, ensure the stability of the entire product production process, and improve product stability. This is the development trend of the manufacturing industry. Dinglong invests heavily in automated production lines in order to provide customers with better quality and stable products and better services. We also know that science and technology are developing with each passing day, and Dinglong has never stopped the pace of exploration. We will continue to innovate and make all our products manufactured with the support of technologies such as networking, big data, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence.”