On August 29, 2024, Frost & Sullivan's (Frost & Sullivan, abbreviated as 'Frost & Sullivan') 18th Frost & Sullivan China Growth, Innovation and Leadership Summit and the 3rd New Investment Conference (abbreviated as '2024 Frost & Sullivan New Investment Conference') ESG and New Productivity Summit Forum was grandly held at the Jing'an Ruiji Hotel in Shanghai. The forum was themed 'Leading New Productivity, Mapping an ESG New Future', bringing together industry experts, ESG and new productivity enterprises, investment institutions and professional service providers. It focused on new investment and financing opportunities related to ESG and new productivity, and jointly explored successful paths in the capital market.
At the sub-forum, Chen Junhua, Executive Director and Deputy General Manager of Canon Nippon Fine Arts, will deliver a speech focusing on how the lens industry embraces digitization to develop new quality productivity, as well as the international trends in lens development.
Executive Director and Deputy General Manager of Cantrat, Chen Junhua
The following are the key points of Chen Junhua's speech:
Lens manufacturing embraces digitization to develop new quality productivity
As the anchor of the national economy, manufacturing is an important support for ensuring national stability and development. Currently, intelligent manufacturing has become the mainstream trend. The eyewear manufacturing industry, which intersects deeply with the golden track of ophthalmology, has broad development prospects against the backdrop of increasingly prominent national vision health issues. To meet the diverse and personalized consumption needs of contemporary consumers, the variety of eyewear categories is increasing, leading to a corresponding growth in data volume and posing new demands for intelligent production by enterprises. Contac has also been continuously expanding its intelligent production lines, driven by customer needs, understanding personalized customer demands, continuously improving lens processing accuracy and production efficiency, and seeking the advantages brought about by intelligent upgrades. In addition, by optimizing production processes, reducing energy consumption and waste emissions, enterprises can achieve green production, effectively lowering energy consumption and emissions, which aligns with today's high ESG standards for corporate production.
International lens development trends
Firstly, the trend towards personalized lenses is becoming increasingly evident. Nowadays, people are no longer satisfied with mass-produced styles of glasses; they wish to create unique glasses that suit their own face shape, skin color, occupation, and other distinctive characteristics. As consumers' demand for personalization continues to grow, customized glasses are becoming a new fashion trend.
Secondly, there is a significant demand for adult functional lenses. After the pandemic, more people in Europe and America have been working from home for longer periods, and the penetration of electronic products into daily life has increased. Therefore, there is expected to be a rapid growth in the demand for functional lenses such as progressive multifocal lenses among adults.
Thirdly, the demand for myopia prevention and control lenses among teenagers is urgent. Compared to foreign countries, the myopia rate among children and adolescents in China remains high, with an early onset age, rapid progression, and deep-seated degree. Chinese enterprises need to develop myopia prevention and control products with independent intellectual property rights. It is particularly crucial to guide the correct use of these products through training, taking into account the market characteristics of China.
Fourth, the exploration of smart glasses is an inevitable choice for industry development. Smart glasses, like smartphones, have independent operating systems and can be made into multi-functional wearable devices through software installation. In recent years, as one of the highly anticipated wearable smart devices, they feature simplicity, portability, and lightweight design. In the future, smart glasses may become a new trend in the development of the eyewear market.
Overall, the lens industry and optometry industry are sunrise industries that require continuous, stable, and healthy development. This cannot be achieved without the learning, breakthroughs, and innovations of industry participants in terms of quality, variety, brand services, and more. The lens manufacturing industry embracing digitalization and intelligent manufacturing is an inevitable trend and choice for industry development. As the national economy continues to develop forward and people's living standards improve, the demand for visual health will also become higher and higher, which also prompts industry practitioners to accelerate the application and promotion of intelligent manufacturing technologies.
