Table Lamps Solidifying Positionin Decorative Spotlight

In home decoration, lighting is today attracting more attention as a way to create the right ambiance in a room by complementing the other design elements. Consumers are choosing table lamps not only for their illumination functions, but increasingly for their design and look as well.

The evolving place of table lamps in the modern home has compelled manufacturers to develop more sophisticated designs and offer the range of colors and styles demanded by buyers trying to match their lighting selections with furniture and room layout. Such demands have created a growing niche market for small-volume production of top-tier lamps that command high margins.

The trend fits well with Taiwan's famous ability in flexible, small-batch production. Local producers have further honed this edge by moving their production capacity to low-cost sites abroad, especially to mainland China, to keep prices competitive.

The cross-Taiwan Strait exodus has fueled the fast-growing lighting industry in mainland China, which in recent years has become the world's main producer of lighting products. Quite a few Taiwanese lighting manufacturers there have established production bases much larger than their old plants in Taiwan, and many of them have developed integrated manufacturing processes, from glass-making, die-casting, and pressing to coating, enameling, electroplating and packaging. Some have focused on high-end products to distinguish their lines from those of their mainland counterparts.

French Styling

Established in 1987, Top Zone Industrials Inc. (TZI) was founded as a trading company, mainly exporting ceiling-fan light kits to the United States. "I have been in the lighting industry for more than 20 years, and experienced the industry's heydays and decline in Taiwan, " says Joseph Fang, president of the company. "The manufacturing environment on the island has been deteriorating since the early 1990s due to soaring wages and industrial land prices."

To lower manufacturing and operating costs, TZI followed many of its local industry counterparts across the Taiwan Strait, where in 1998 it set up a plant in the city of Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. Three years later, TZI relocated the plant to Xiamen in Fujian Province, and at the same time established Xiamen Atop Galle Arts Co. (XAGA) to produce state-of-the-art Galle glass lighting products and gift items.

Galle is a style of glassmaking pioneered by the Frenchman Emile Galle, who was born in 1846 and was trained in art, botany, and chemistry, three subjects that he combined in his brilliant designs for glass and other products. Later on, his unique technique and style in glass products were copied by many other glassmakers, who as a result advertised their glass as 'Galle style'.

"The processes of 'Galle glass' lamps are very complicated, because they are made of several layers of glass materials, and the coefficient of expansion for each layer of glass is different. It's very hard to get the precise coefficient expansion that we need, " Fang explains. Besides, the glass has to go through ingredient compounding, melting, design, blowing, annealing, coarse grinding, sculpting, carving, fine grinding, polishing, waxing and a lot of inspections in between. The annealing process, he says, can take up to three days, compared with only two to three hours for regular glass.

"The manufacturing of Galle glass lamps is time-consuming. A work team of two persons in our factory can finish two to three such lamps per day, on average, " Fang says. "New workers need to be trained for at least two months before they are ready to join the production line."

At the early stage, Galle glass products were regarded as artworks and sold at prices over US$150 per piece. However, due to the sophisticated manufacturing technologies required, not many lighting makers have dared to join in the line. "There are five or six large-scale lighting manufacturers engaged in the production of Galle glass lamps in the mainland, as well as numerous cottage producers, " Fang says.

Fang says his company moved to Xiamen to escape the crowded lighting industry at its former base in Guangzhou. "There are too many lighting manufacturers in Guangdong and this has created a climate of cut-throat competition, plagiary, and talent hopping. Without being bothered by such things, we have been faring very well in Xiamen now."

Today XAGA has a workforce of about 300 workers, and many of them are fine art graduates of colleges or universities in Xiamen. "The manufacture of Galle glass table lamps needs a lot of human labor, particularly in glass blowing, pattern drawing, sculpting, carving, polishing, and waxing. With the assistance of machines, we now can turn out such lamps on a large scale and lower the FOB price to US$10 per piece, " Fang discloses.

Currently XAGA can produce five to six 40-foot-equivalent container loads of lamps daily on its two production lines. About 80% of this output is exported, mainly to Europe, the Middle East, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. About half of the company's Galle glass products are table lamps. The company also has sales agents in the United States, France, and India to help it tap those markets, Fang says.

The six designers at XAGA's R&D department develop an average of 20-30 new products per month, Fang says.

Over the past three years XAGA has enjoyed annual revenue growth of 20%-30%. The company plans to form a technical cooperation with a Japanese glass product manufacturer, which may also order products from the Taiwanese firm on an OEM basis.

XAGA also recently signed a contract with B&Q to export lamps back to Taiwan from August this year, Fang says.

Keeping Pace With a Quickening Product Cycle

Like XAGA, Verona Lighting Co. was also established as a trading company and expanded into lamp production six years ago. The company moved its plant to mainland China soon after setting up a factory in Taiwan. Currently the company conducts almost all of its businesses in the mainland except for shipping and accounting operations, which are handled in Taiwan.

Verona's mainland plant in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province has some 600 employees and purchases all of its materials from the mainland. Products turned out by the plant include pedant lamps, table lamps, floor lamps and wall lamps. "Table lamps account for about one fifth of our output, " says Tracy Wang, the company's secretary.

"In the very competitive lighting arena, we have to keep developing new products to survive, " Wang says. "We are proud of our R & D team which is composed of experienced designers in the mainland and the U.S. as well."

Depending on the market demand, the company introduces an average of 10-20 new lamps per month. "Our designers in the U.S. provide a lot of marketing information for us and help us to design the lamps to meet the market demand there, " Wang notes. At present, Verona sells 90% of its products to the United States, and the remaining 10% are exported to Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

"Rapid change in patterns has shortened the life cycle of a lamp. This makes it hard to patent new designs in time and thus encourages imitation, " Wang remarks. Nevertheless, Verona has increased its revenue by 20%-30% a year in recent years, and its monthly shipment level is currently around 50-60 40-foot equivalent containers.

Magic Touch

Ai Wang Brassware Mfg. Co. chairman Hsu Cheng-wang has been making brass lamps since he was 18 years old. At the tender age of 25, he founded his own company with money earned from working at a machinery factory to tap demand for lamps among tourists and U.S. military personnel based in Taiwan in the 1970s.

Hsu started with artistic brass lamps, which he sold mainly to souvenir stores in Shihlin and Chungshan North Road in Taipei City, then two of the few attractive shopping areas for foreigners in Taiwan.

In the early 1980s, Ai Wang jumped onto Taiwan's export bandwagon, and started to sell its products overseas via traders. Thanks to the rapid development of Taiwan's electronic industry, some lighting manufacturers have applied the electronic devices to their lamps, including "touch-on" switches. Today touch-on lamps, mainly table lamps and floor lamps, account for 70% of the company's outputs, Hsu states.

Surface treatment is important to the operability of touch-on lamps, since it affects electrical conductivity. "Electroplating is key technique of surface treatment for metal lamps, and Taiwanese manufacturers, with long experience in the field, are superior to their counterparts in the mainland and Southeast Asia. With a strong background in this technique, Taiwanese lighting makers are confident in keeping their lead in this area at least into the near future, " Hsu says.

"Although India has a long history in the manufacture of brass lamps, manufacturers there are still far behind Taiwanese makers in electroplating technique, " Hsu adds.

Due to Taiwan's deteriorating manufacturing environment, Hsu moved its plant to the mainland in 1992 and the office in Taiwan is currently in charge of order taking and marketing affairs. Although more and more local rivals have emerged in the mainland, Hsu is not afraid of the emerging competition. "Taiwanese manufacturers have an edge in R&D that will be difficult for mainland rivals to match. They are also supported by sophisticated manufacturing technology and extensive international trading experience, " Hsu says.

Contact information on companies by the article:
Top Zone Industrials Inc.
Taiwan Office:

1F, No. 8, Alley 20, Lane 316, Chin Hsing Rd., Peitou, Taipei, Taiwan

Tel: 886-2-2858-3289

Fax: 886-2-2858-3991

E-mail: topzonec@ms11.hinet.net

Website: http://www.atopco.com

China Office:

Xiamen Atop Galle Arts Co.

4F, Sinopec Building, Hu Li Da Dao, Xiamen, China

Tel: 86-592-5622852, 86-562-2853

Fax: 86-592-565-1933

Verona Lighting Co.
Taipei Head Office

1st Fl., 124-11 Minsheng Rd., Taishan Hsiang, Taipei Hsien, Taiwan

Tel: 886-2-2900-3100 (Rep.)

Fax: 886-2-2900-3105

E-mail: berona@ms34.hinet.net

China Factory

Gaosha Development Dist., Guangzhu Rd., Dongsheng, Zhongshan, Guangdong, China

Tel: 86-760-222-7319

Fax: 86-760-282-0548

E-mail: verona@pub.zhongshan.gd.cn

Ai Wang Brassware Mfg. Co.
No. 36, Lane 317, Chungcheng N. Rd., Sanchung, Taipei Hsien, Taiwan

Tel: 886-2-2981-4225, 2982-0746, 2984-3841

Fax: 886-2-2984-3842