Foreigners:know about China's eyeglasses industry

China has gradually become the largest manufacturing base for eyeglasses frames, spectacle lenses and sunglasses in the past decade. Here are some fundamental facts about China's glasses industry. 

 

1. China's manufacturing of eyeglasses-related products is mainly focused in four major geographic districts which are Shenzhen and Dongguan of Guangdong province, Xiamen of Fujian province, Wenzhou and Duqiao Linhai of Zhejiang province and Danyang of Jiangsu province respectively. These four districts produce about 90% of whole volume of China's eyeglasses industry.

Wenzhou and Duqiao Linhai are both in eastern China's Zhejiang province, the famous "Land of Overseas Chinese". Their optical companies focus on manufacturing middle- to low-end frames and sunglasses. their market of sunglasses in the world's market is about 60%. Wenzhou and Duqiao have about 1500 manufacturers in the area of frames, sunglasses and other accessories.

Shenzhen and Dongguan are located at southern China's Guangdong province. These two cities are geographically close to Hong Kong, resulting in most of the manufacturers in Shenzhen and Dongguan being invested by HK eyeglasses companies. For this reason, Shenzhen and Dongguan are now the base for making middle- to high-end eyeglasses in China with most of the glasses labelled with world's most fames designers' logo. Shenzhen only has about 500 manufacturers with annual capacity of 200 million pairs of frames, lenses and sunglasses, and 95% of the products are exported to 130 countries, and 70% of European market share is from Shenzhen. 
 

Xiamen is located in China's southeastern Fujian province. Xiamen is just the opposite side of the Taiwan Strait which is very close to Taiwan, therefore most the Xiamen glasses enterprises are Taiwan-mainland joint vetures. Different from other districts in China, Xiamen mainly focuses on the production and marketing of high-end sunglasses. 

Danyang is in Jiangsu province which is near to Shanghai and Zhejiang province. This is a place where mostly the factories are engaged in the making of all types of middle- to low-end lenses. While Danyang also has some enterprises manufacturing frames, but the quality of the frames is of low end. The annual lenses producing capacity of Danyang is 150-200 million pairs which occupies about 70% of China's total volume and 50% of the whole world's. 

 

2. China's eyeglasses indutry is export-oriented. In 2007, China exported 2.465 billion pairs of eyeglasses frames, lenese and sunglasses, with a total value of 3.344 billion US dollars. Unfortunately the average export price is only USD1.36 per pair. About 60% of China's total production of eyeglasses-related goods is for export, which has a world's low-end market share of 80%. In total China has about 4000 manufacturers in the eyeglasses and relative areas. 

 

3. China is the most populous nation in the world. Out of her 1.35 billion population, about 300 million need some kind of corrective eyeglasses. Adding the consumption of sunglasses for fashion and protection purpose in the summertime, the whole market is immense. Therefore, many world's major chain retailers, such as LensCrafters, are entering and expanding in China's local market in hope of grabbing China's high-end consumers. Presently China has about 20,000 retail optical stores. 

 

If you are interested in China's optical and vision eyeglasses industry, you may find the above.