Signify shining a light on a bright future

Signify (formerly known as Philips Lighting) this year has expanded its exhibition space at the second China International Import Expo by 50 percent from the previous year to cover 300 square meters to showcase lighting and Internet of Things solutions that helps build smart cities and organizations.

“Signify successfully demonstrated its leadership in lighting for the Internet of Things and its contribution to the transition toward smart cities in China,” said John Wang, senior vice president at Signify and President of Signify China. “The presence of our new company name for Philips Lighting was the greatest achievement we had at last year’s CIIE.”

Signify completed the changing of company name in May 2018 after becoming an independent and separate listed company on Amsterdam’s Euronext Stock Exchange, and has retained the brand name Philips for its lighting products.

Its product, system and services offerings under the brand matrix were well introduced and presented to Chinese key stakeholders as a comprehensive organization at last year’s first CIIE.

“It was also one of the biggest steps of our communication programs to make known to the public our new company name and also helped enhance our future business prospects with local partners,” he noted.

“We believe that we could build further momentum for our most influential technologies to help China address its rising energy and environmental challenges,” Wang added.

Its strategic cooperation deal with China National Building Material Group which was signed during the first CIIE helped China National Building Material Group to create a 250-square-meter smart greenhouse at the 2019 International Horticultural Exhibition in Beijing.

Its smart agriculture project in southwest of Meishan, Sichuan is also underway, and it helped one of China National Building Material Group’s affiliates, Triumph Group, create the largest glass greenhouse for vegetable growing in southwestern China.

China is already the second-largest market and another home market for Signify.

It has been setting up manufacturing plants as well as research capabilities to develop new technologies locally.

“Pushing for further growth in China is a key component of our global business strategy and we have strong technologies and the capabilities to support China’s growth vision,” said Wang.

“We want to fully leverage the CIIE as an important platform, and we believe that we could build further momentum for our most influential technologies to help China address its rising energy and environmental challenges.”

Signify has been innovating, producing and selling light products in China since its first presence here, and it now already takes a leading position in sustainability and innovations in lighting systems and services for Internet of Things devices and infrastructure.

China is also a key market not only from the manufacturing perspective but from the research and development side as well.

The company has been actively taking shifts from conventional lighting to LEDs and creating new profit engines in order to embrace the next wave of revolution.

One example is its Li-Fi technology which was showcased at the first China International Import Expo last November. It uses light waves to transmit data instead of radio waves as WiFi networks do.

The technology is already deployed under a trial basis at selected offices at the China Academy of Building Research in Beijing.

This year the second generation of Li-Fi products and solution will be present at the CIIE with new brands, aiming at professional markets such as offices, hospitality, retail, industry and health care.

Another highlight is the smart pole solution for smart city infrastructure upgrade, which helps accommodate a wide variety of Internet of Things devices including sensors, cameras, screens and small-cell base stations, offering assets and environment monitoring, as well as the enhanced security options such as incident detection.

The other spotlight would be its connected lighting system “Interact” which enables multiple light scenes to adjust lighting standards in the venues such as sports stadiums, which provides great flexibility with centrally controlled dashboard to manage different scenes.

Signify’s Shanghai research and development center, with around 1,000 staff, is the second largest for the Netherlands-headquartered company, and it also operates four manufacturing sites in China.

Last year, Signify completed the acquisition of Shenzhen LiteMagic Technologies Co to expand its portfolio of luminaires and control systems, which was later put together with Signify’s in-house technology in an integrated platform to control and manage lighting on over 40 rooftops on buildings alongside the Huangpu River and on the Yangpu, Nanpu and Xupu bridges.

LiteMagic’s products are now also used for overseas projects as the company seeks synergies to put those together with Signify’s urban lighting solutions.

As digital technologies drive industry upgrades across various sectors, Signify has been dedicated to new solutions and capabilities to manage, monitor and control lighting hardware and software to enable improvement of lighting operation and business performance.

It’s striving to offer lighting products, systems and services which enable customers to enjoy a unique quality of light and make people’s lives safer and comfortable; businesses and cities more energy efficient, productive and livable; and the world more sustainable.

 It also created open platforms for lighting products in the Internet of Things realm, and this open approach enables others to create their own applications, tailored to their needs, location and situation in buildings, cities and different types of infrastructure.

By forging strategic partnerships with leading companies, Signify hopes to bring together complementary technologies and capabilities to benefit customers and deliver new value and experiences. Its partners with companies like Amazon, Apple, Bosch, China Mobile, Cisco, Ericsson, Google, Huawei, Samsung, SAP, and Vodafone to extend lighting into the IoT.

“We look forward to extending our partnership with China by exploring an open approach to trade and innovation and we welcome open trade and believe in open innovation as a means to foster mutual benefits and prosperity,” Wang added.