Raycus, a maker of fiber lasers and their key components and materials, has first publicly issued shares and listed its prospectus on the GEM, adding itself as a new forces to the laser concept stocks. The prospectus shows that Raycus Laser plans to publicly issue new shares of no more than 32 million ordinary shares. After the issuance of the raised funds and deducting the issuance cost, it will invest in the development and industrialization projects of high-power fiber lasers, the industrialization of middle and high power semiconductor lasers, and the research and development and application engineering center projects with a total investment of 111,915.43 million.

The prospectus shows that as of March 31, 2018, Raycus Laser's total assets were RMB 925,974,200, liabilities totaled RMB 316,960,700, owner's equity was RMB 600,903,500, and its financial position was good. In the first quarter of 2018, the company achieved revenue of RMB320,589,300, an increase of 74.59% year-on-year, and net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company was RMB 11,269.12 million, an increase of 101.38% year-on-year. Raycus Lasers stated that profit indicators such as operating income for the period from January to March in 2018 and net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company maintained rapid growth as compared with the same period of last year, mainly due to the continuous increase in demand of downstream customers of the company and the sales of medium and high power fiber lasers maintained rapid growth.

Raycus Laser (Wuhan) is a high-tech enterprise specializing in R&D, production and sales of fiber lasers and their key components and materials. It has a national key innovation team in high-power fiber lasers and a national and local joint engineering research center for fiber laser technology. Including laser manufacturing equipment integrators to provide a variety of fiber laser products and application solutions, and provide customers with technology research and development services and customized products.

Raycus Lasers stated that the funds raised in this public offering will be used to promote the development of the company's main business, the implementation of high-power fiber laser development and industrialization projects, the industrialization of mid- and high-power semiconductor lasers, and R&D and application engineering center projects, which is the company’s need for strategic development. The implementation of this project will help to strengthen China's laser manufacturing industry, and it is of great significance to improving the company's core competitiveness and enhancing its profitability.

The prospectus shows that the main products of Raycus Laser are two series of pulse fiber lasers and continuous fiber lasers, all of which are independent research and development. The design level, product quality and performance are in the advanced level of the industry as a whole, and the product line is extensive and complete, including 10W to 200W. Pulsed fiber lasers and continuous fiber lasers from 10W to 10,000W.

Raycus Laser's main products are continuous fiber lasers, pulsed fiber lasers, technology development services, and other revenues in 2017 were respectively 716.43 million yuan, 175.539 million yuan, 19.8287 million yuan, 37.276 million yuan.

Future prospect and trends for fiber lasers

In recent years, with the transfer of global manufacturing to developing countries, the market share of the laser industry in the Asia-Pacific region has grown rapidly. According to the report of the United States Strategies Unlimited, from 2013 to 2017, the global laser industry's revenue continues to grow. From US$8,970 million in 2013 to US$12,430 million in 2017, the CAGR is 8.50%.

With the breakthrough of high-power laser technology and the maturity of additive manufacturing technologies, it is expected that the laser industry will continue to grow rapidly in the future. In 2017, the global laser processing equipment market was US$31.37 billion, an increase of 12% year-on-year. In 2017, the total sales volume of China's laser equipment market exceeded 44.2 billion yuan, and the growth rate continued to increase, reaching 14.8%. The average annual sales growth of laser equipment market in 2010-2017 reached 21.8%.

As the consumer electronics field is the largest end-use industry for industrial lasers, the market demand for consumer electronics manufacturers will enable the industrial laser market in China, Japan, Korea, India and other countries and regions to show significant growth. China is an active manufacturing market and a major market for industrial laser equipment. Affected by factors such as macroeconomic development, upgrading of the manufacturing industry, and support from government policies, China’s industrial laser industry has become one of the highly regarded industries, and the market has developed rapidly. In 2015, China replaced Europe and became the largest consumer market for lasers for the first time. The market scale increased to approximately US$2.8 billion, accounting for approximately 29% of the global market size. In 2017, the output value of China's laser industry chain exceeded 100 billion yuan, and laser equipment located in the middle reaches accounted for about 42%, which is an increase of 5 percentage points from 2016.

In recent years, the application range of fiber lasers in the industrial processing field has been expanding. In the next few years, Raycus Laser predicts that there will be five major development trends in the fiber laser industry:

1.Higher power

It is expected that the output power of fiber lasers will reach tens of thousands of watts by adopting higher-powered pump sources, more advanced specialty fiber designs, and high-power fiber combining technologies.

2. Pulsed fiber lasers with high average power and high peak power

In many applications of lasers, high-beam-quality, low-power lasers are used as seed light sources, and double-clad fibers are used as amplifiers, and it is easy to obtain pulsed laser output with high average power and high pulse energy, which is a hotspot and difficulty in current industry research.

3. Ultrashort Pulsed Fiber Lasers

At present, high-speed ultra-fast ultra-short pulse fiber lasers are hot spots in R&D.

4. Higher brightness

At present, developed countries adopt high-beam-quality high-power fiber lasers as the preferred light source for tactical laser weapons, and military and other special requirements will prompt fiber lasers to develop toward higher power while simultaneously developing toward higher brightness, i.e. to increase output power while maintaining fiber laser output beam quality.

5. Modularization and intelligence

On the one hand, the use of limited specifications and varieties, through the combination and matching of different modules, shorten the new product development cycle, improve product stability and reliability. At the same time, through the use of advanced communication technologies and design concepts, through the real-time monitoring of the operating status of fiber lasers, it is possible to discover and handle potential product failures in advance so as to provide customers with better products and services.

In addition, with the development of fiber laser technology and the increasing demand of downstream industries, the market size of fiber lasers has maintained rapid growth. Industries such as traditional manufacturing, automobile production, and heavy industry manufacturing are increasingly using fiber lasers. At the same time, fiber lasers are also used in the fields of medical cosmetology, communications, and aerospace. In the future, fiber laser technology will be used in more application areas, and its market potential is tremendous.