SCHOTT Group’s total sales in China in 2018/2019 exceeded RMB 2 billion, with a growth rate of 11%, accounting for approximately 12% of global sales. China is becoming SCHOTT’s largest market. In the past few years, SCHOTT Group China (hereinafter referred to as "SCHOTT China") has concentrated its main business in the fields of healthcare and pharmaceutical packaging, consumer electronics, and household appliances. At the same time, it also established an Asia-Pacific R&D center in Suzhou in January 2020. , Based on the relatively mature technology of special glass and glass-ceramics within the group, it provides technical support for 5G communications, XR, autonomous driving, ultra-thin glass and cell phone cover glass.
In the field of healthcare, "SCHOTT China" mainly produces 5.0 medicinal borosilicate glass tubes. Under the influence of China's pharmaceutical packaging relevance policy and the injection consistency policy launched in 2017, pharmaceutical companies are more inclined to cooperate with the leading pharmaceutical packaging materials and use medium boron with a lower thermal expansion coefficient and better stability than borosilicate silicon. According to a reporter's query of the China Pharmaceutical Packaging Association, the current growth rate of China's borosilicate pharmaceutical glass packaging market has basically maintained a growth rate of 30%. It is expected that China's demand will reach 200,000 tons by 2025.
Since coronavirus (covid-19), glass packaging for injection reagents has been in short supply. The new crown vaccine is about to come out in the near future. SCHOTT expects to supply the global market with medium borosilicate glass packaging that can fill 2 billion doses of vaccine. The group believes that if the industry concentrates on expanding production capacity and prioritizes processing, it can meet the current short-term demand for pharmaceutical packaging. At present, SCHOTT has invested 1 billion US dollars in the production and processing of pharmaceutical glass, increasing the production capacity of 40,000 tons of medicinal borosilicate glass tube, which can produce 6.8 billion injection bottles. According to the company, SCHOTT has been in short supply since 2018. Therefore, SCHOTT has actively expanded its production lines and maintained an average annual growth rate of 20-30%. At this stage, SCHOTT China is stepping up its construction in Jinyun, Zhejiang at a cost of 6000. The 10,000-euro 5.0 medicinal borosilicate glass tube production base will have a production capacity of 20,000 tons in the first phase. It is planned to be officially put into production at the end of 2020. Prior to this, the group did not have a glass tube production line in China.
According to SCHOTT China, in view of the implementation of policies such as related review and consistency evaluation of injections, as well as the upgrading of domestic drugs, pharmaceutical customers pay more attention to factors such as product quality, supply management and speed in the procurement process. Compared with domestic pharmaceutical packaging, SCHOTT’s pricing is relatively high. According to the company, customers are not sensitive to prices in terms of pharmaceutical packaging. The company can provide stable product quality and faster delivery. In the next stage, one of the company's priorities is to upgrade its production capacity in China. In addition to the existing construction plan, the company will invest more than 100 million yuan to further expand the production scale of pharmaceutical primary packaging (injection bottles, ampoules, and cartridges).
In addition to the above major business segments in the medical and electronic fields, SCHOTT China is also exploring new growth points for its business in China in recent years.
In the field of consumer electronics, SCHOTT China’s product line includes cover glass to optical devices, including fingerprint recognition devices, front and rear cameras, sensors, and ambient light recognition systems, which can be applied to mobile phones and wearable devices. The company launched a new model in April this year. Cover glass series-Sai Xuan Flex foldable glass, the bending radius is less than 2mm. The high-performance cover glass of Xenon Up that the company introduced to the market before is made of lithium aluminum silicon (LAS) material. According to the company, the probability of drop resistance of mobile phones is 10 times that of traditional aluminum silicon glass.
At present, the industry believes that glass is a better solution for the back cover of 5G mobile phones. In recent years, the emerging 3D curved front cover can also work well with flexible OLEDs to achieve higher definition. On the other hand, glass does not hinder the penetration of electromagnetic waves. , It can also work well with the wireless charging function of mobile phones. HIS predicts that the effective domestic demand for cover glass will exceed 15 million square meters in 2020, with an average annual growth rate of nearly 20% from 2017 to 2020.
In the industry chain, the design and manufacturing of glass substrates is also at the high end of the gross profit margin. The substrates account for 13%-18% of the total cost of touch screen manufacturers. The reporter learned from the information reported by the glass industry network that the global market leader Corning Gorilla Glass The gross profit margin is above 60%. According to SCHOTT China, the company pays more attention to technical support. At present, more cooperation is based on customers' requirements for mobile phone drop performance and personalized design. In addition, in terms of quality stability, based on years of research and accumulation of industry know-how, the company can provide customers with technical support for the industrial chain and provide different product solutions based on downstream manufacturers' processing techniques. SCHOTT products are currently used in vivo NEX3S 5G and the latest S6 and other 5G mobile phones. At the same time, the company is also Samsung's ultra-thin glass supplier.
High refractive index glass wafers are also regarded by the company as a growth point. In May this year, the group released a new generation of high refractive optical glass wafers RealView series products, with a refractive index of up to 1.9, which can help the AR waveguide system achieve a horizontal 53° field of view. (65° diagonal field of view). The company also recently reached a strategic cooperation with Lumus to provide production support for its reflective waveguide optical element (LOE). According to the company, in the cooperation, Lumus will be responsible for the R&D and commercialization of optical design, SCHOTT will mainly be responsible for product processing and manufacturing, smelting of optical glass materials at SCHOTT’s German plant, and completion of crystallization in a substrate processing plant jointly established with Crystal Optoelectronics in China. Circular manufacturing and optical coating (mass production has been achieved), and the products are assembled by the Malaysian factory.
The reflective waveguide is recognized for its excellent image quality, and its production process must be strictly controlled to achieve this goal.
In addition, in the field of data communication, SCHOTT launched a new high-speed 50G TO package last year. The 5G communication indicators require optical devices to achieve higher power, lower power consumption and lower cost in the same space. According to the company, SCHOTT The solution can achieve difficult high-speed transmission rates in a small airtight space, and the hermetic packaging also plays a key role in protecting the laser chip. At the same time, the company also provides special glass and air-sealed packaging solutions for lidar. According to reports, the solution can protect the internal sensing equipment on the basis of ensuring that the laser beam has no quality or performance loss, which is lower than the external vibration, impact and other driving environments on the sensor equipment. The test.
In the future development plan, Chen Wei, general manager of SCHOTT Group China, told 36Kr that the company continues to pay attention to the application of special glass in various industries. Based on the company’s 136 years of accumulated technology and experience in special glass and glass-ceramics, Cooperative research and development will continue to explore new innovative areas of glass materials. In order to better meet the needs of the Chinese local market, SCHOTT has also established SCHOTT China R&D Center in Suzhou. According to the company, it currently focuses on forward-looking explorations and product technologies in the fields of 5G, new batteries, and advanced glass materials for consumer electronics. Research and development.