In fact, the entire LED lighting market entered its regular off‑season starting from June this year, with most enterprises in the industry reporting falling revenues. However, Zhang Xiaobo, General Manager of Zhaoqing Emerald Electronics Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Emerald), holds the view that “there are only off‑season mindsets, not off‑season markets”. He stated, “Even amid the off‑season, Emerald’s product sales in the first half of the year remained competitive, and our revenue was unaffected.”

Founded in 2004, Emerald is a key national Torch‑Program high‑tech enterprise integrating the R&D, manufacturing and sales of aluminum electrolytic capacitors, solid‑state capacitors and supercapacitors. After years of rapid growth, the company was officially listed on the New Third Board in 2015.

To tackle problems such as leakage, flammability and electrolyte evaporation of liquid capacitors, Emerald focuses heavily on the R&D and production of solid‑state capacitors. The company aims to prepare customers for product upgrades and custom‑design all‑solid‑state solutions, enabling LED driving power supplies to operate safely under all environmental conditions.

Nevertheless, due to the high price that hinders solid‑state capacitor popularization, power‑supply enterprises still mostly opt for liquid capacitors. “Customers targeting low‑end markets face heavy cost pressure with solid‑state capacitors. Meanwhile, liquid capacitors keep dropping in price, so price‑oriented manufacturers naturally reject solid‑state capacitors,” Zhang Xiaobo explained.

Therefore, guiding low‑end customers to shift from liquid capacitors to solid‑state ones has become one of Emerald’s core objectives in recent years. According to Zhang Xiaobo, customers will readily adopt solid‑state capacitors if their cost can be brought close enough to that of liquid capacitors.

“Reducing solid‑state capacitor prices is our persistent goal. We will improve R&D technologies, cut material costs and shorten development cycles, enhance overall product stability, deliver greater added value for customers, and achieve gradual replacement of liquid capacitors,” said Zhang Xiaobo.

Encouragingly, some high‑end power‑supply enterprises that prioritize service life and performance improvement have already replaced liquid capacitors with solid‑state alternatives. “High‑end power‑supply manufacturers prefer solid‑state capacitors for their high stability and longer service life. Driven by their own pursuit of better product performance and quality, switching to solid‑state capacitors has become a trend,” Zhang Xiaobo commented.

Zhang Xiaobo believes solid‑state capacitors have promising prospects, and power‑supply enterprises will increase their adoption in the future. Looking ahead for the company, he added, “Emerald will maintain consistent product quality, keep pace with technological innovation and market changes. Besides, we will expand our customer base into more sectors; automotive electronics will be one of our key development directions.”