ESL has become a new retail standard configuration, and the top five cities in the world account for 75%.
ESL(Electronic Shelf Labels) is an electronic display device placed on the shelves, which can replace the traditional paper price labels. It can show customers the name, origin, price and other information of this product, including words, pictures and QR codes.
In recent years, new retail has spawned the rise of electronic shelf label market, which is becoming the standard configuration of new retail. According to the research data of RUNTO, the global market scale will reach 8.7 billion yuan in 2020, and the global ESL market will grow at an annual rate of more than 20% from 2021 to 2025.
The number one is BOE|SES-imagotag, with a market share of over 50%; Together with Pricer of Sweden, Solum of Korea, E-Ink of Taiwan Province, China and Hanshow of China, the top five manufacturers account for more than 75% of the global market.
China is one of the fastest growing markets for electronic shelf labels. Many retailers in China are in full swing to transform, upgrade and transform the traditional retail industry. Through many hardware terminals such as electronic shelf labels, cameras, smart payment, splicing screens and strip screens, as well as online systems such as intelligent price change, data analysis, commodity promotion and logistics management, online and offline are seamlessly connected, and data-driven processes are used to improve store operation efficiency and user experience. At present, electronic shelf labels are widely used in retail stores such as Boxma Xiansheng, Yonghui Supermarket, wu mart, Watsons and Suning.
According to the data of RUNTO, in 2016, in the China market, the electronic price tag shipped 2 million pieces. In just five years, the shipment scale has reached 20 million pieces in 2020.
China electronic price tag shipment scale from 2016 to 2020
Data source: RUNTO, unit: 10,000 tablets.
Solum’s ESL sales in 2021 will be 2.5 times that in 2020. Solum Electronics of South Korea is the main supplier of Samsung Electronics Group, mainly producing power supplies, mobile phone chargers, electronic shelf labels and 3 in1.
Solum’s cumulative sales in the third quarter of 2020 was 812 billion won and its operating profit was 45.7 billion won. The average annual sales growth rate from 2017 to 2019 is 29%. The largest shareholder is Quan Xinghao, who owns 16.00% of the shares, and Samsung Motor holds 10.94% of the shares. Quan Xinghao once served as the regional head of Samsung Electronics CIS (smart phone CMOS sensor) and the head of Samsung Motor DM (digital module) business unit.
At present, Solum’s ESL has been applied in North American retailers Lowe’s, Loblaw, European retailers Rewe, Edeka, Korea Lotte Mart and Home Plus, and the next market focus will be in Europe.
Europe is the birthplace of electronic shelf labels, which could not be commercialized at first because of the high production cost. With the continuous increase of labor costs, electronic shelf labels have become an important tool to reduce the operating costs of stores and have been applied to major stores. The penetration rate of French market has reached 60%, while the penetration rate of China market is only about 10% at present.
Holly, a PID supply chain analyst at Runto, believes that BOE|SES-imagotag and Pricer have been operating in Europe for many years, and it is not easy for Solum to expand its share in the European market. According to Solum’s internal forecast, the sales of ESL in 2021 is expected to be more than 2.5 times that in 2020, and the sales of its ESL products in 2020 will be 120 billion won.
Qualcomm reached a strategic cooperation with BOE|SES last year and injected capital. SES-imagotag is the world’s leading provider of digital solutions in retail fields such as electronic shelf labels and digital signs in France. In March 2018, BOE completed the acquisition of SES. After that, BOE held about 80% of SES shares, making it the largest single shareholder, and Yuantai Technology held 6%.
In January 2020, Qualcomm announced that it had formally reached a strategic cooperation agreement with BOE|SES-imagotag, and the capital injection was successful.
SES-Imagotog’s biggest market is Europe, and after BOE’s acquisition, it began to expand its market in North America and China. At present, it has served many well-known brands at home and abroad in China market, such as Adidas, Wal-Mart, Watsons, Xiaomi, Sephora and Starbucks. Globally, the ESL of SES-Imagotog has been stationed in 62 countries, more than 100 retail brands and more than 17,000 stores.