How to find right eyewear manufacturers in China? (I)
The place where about 90% of all eyewear in the world is made is China. Japanese make some of the best eyewear in the world, they are true craftsmen. Italy is also good, but China became the number one place for quality, price, and reliability in the last 20 years or so. Most Japanese, French and Italian manufactures all have partners or offices in China. Italy’s famous acetate manufacturer Mazzucelli, they’re biggest operation is….. China. OBE and Germany’s comotech hinges main office is also in China, the big lens suppliers Zeiss, Sola, PPG, Essilor are all based now in China.
All the materials, supplies, machinery and the engineers are now in China, you can’t deny that. Even though there’s still a bad association to cheaply made Chinese goods, the truth is China make the iPhone, making the most advanced products in the world and the whole ecosystem is there and no one can beat them.
There is no doubt that most people know they should go to China to find eyeglasses supplier or factory to meet their country rising demand from all ages in the booming digital time. But the question is how to find the right one? Especially during the pandemic, they can’t go to China to source good suppliers. Nobody can say all China suppliers are perfect and reliable.
In order to be more helpful to more people who want to enter the eyewear business and want to understand the Chinese eyewear industry, Shanghai JM Optical will make a general explanation in following several articles of the overall Chinese eyewear industry based on years of experience and understanding of the industry, and hopefully, it will be helpful to everyone.
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Probably the main reason people don’t manufacture eyewear in China is that they don’t know how to find the right manufacturer for the eyewear they require. They might be concerned about quality, payment procedures, social compliance, ISO certification, etc. and rightly so, but these concerns are relatively easy to allay once you know what to look for. China manufacturing tends to be highly concentrated in specific regions for specific products
Part 1: China Eyewear Industrial Production Base
Let's start with the first point, the main eyewear production base in China.
According to incomplete statistics, there are about 6,000 glasses manufacturers and more than 30,000 eyeglass retailers in China, which is the largest country in terms of production, import, and export of eyeglasses and sunglasses. The distribution of China's glasses manufacturers is relatively concentrated, mainly in five regions: Shenzhen of Guangdong; Xiamen of Fujian; Wenzhou of Zhejiang; Danyang of Jiangsu and Yingtan of Jiangxi. The former 4 regions are long time manufacture bases and the last one is a new coming up place in recent years, which all of them have complete industrial support and have formed a huge scale.
- Shenzhen Henggangwas developed by taking over the inward relocation of Hong Kong's eyewear industry. After 30 years of development, Henggang has become one of the major eyewear production bases in China and the main production base of world-renowned medium and high-grade eyewear brands. By the end of 2020, Henggang has more than 800 glasses manufacture and marketing enterprises, with a total annual output of more than 125 million pairs, accounting for about 20% of the total national output. The production of high-grade eyeglass frames such as rubber frames, metal frames, and titanium frames accounts for 70% of the global output, and 95% of the products are exported all over the world to become an important export base for eyeglasses in China. In recent years, Henggang glasses supplier have been changing their business model and philosophy, transforming and upgrading their industry, no longer only OEM and OEM production for international luxury eyeglass brands, but also creating their own brands through technical transformation and R&D, brand packaging planning for enterprises.
- In recent years, China's eyewear industry has developed rapidly, with production and sales rising year by year. China has become a big country of eyeglass manufacturing and export, and also a big country of consumption. And Xiamen has become the domestic sunglasses production base.
The vice president of the Xiamen Optical Industry Association said that China's exports of eyeglasses and their parts amounted to more than $5.6 billion in 2019, up 2.8% year-on-year. It is understood that Xiamen has a good eyewear industrial foundation. Xiamen is adjacent to Taiwan, At the end of the 80s, Taiwan businessmen invested in Xiamen, Xiamen also gradually undertake Taiwan's glasses industry. After nearly 30 years of development, Xiamen has become a domestic sunglasses production base, so far has developed a full industry chain covering sunglasses, optical frames, and lenses brand group, related products occupy more than 70% of the domestic market. Xiamen brand has become a domestic fashion trendsetter, and the international influence is also increasing.
- Since the 1990s, the Wenzhou eyewear industry began to scale development, in 1993, Europe optical, one of the largest European eyewear enterprises, came to Wenzhou to purchase, from then on opened the door to the export of Wenzhou eyewear industrial, with China's accession to the WTO, Wenzhou eyewear industry ushered in a period of rapid development. The optical industry has also become one of the six pillar industries in Wenzhou.
Into the 21st century, Wenzhou eyeglasses stepped into a new stage of development, and achieved a qualitative leap. Eyewear production began to start, glasses accessories, eyeglass equipment, glasses molds, electroplating, etc. have formed a large-scale eyewear industrial chain, and the quality of enterprises has also been greatly improved, many glasses manufacturers have basically left the family workshop-style manual production model, and gradually to the direction of large-scale, intensive, modern enterprises, the formation of a complete industrial chain of research and development, design, production, sales as a whole. 2019, Wenzhou has glasses and related upstream and downstream enterprises of more than 500, employing more than 60,000 people, 56 enterprises above the scale, with an annual output value of more than 10 billion yuan.
After 2020, some excellent manufacturers are striving for second industrial upgrade on ODM and OCM, which have been driven from customers demand on unique and excellent design of more and more brands. In order to catch the great developing chance, like JM Optical, even set up design center in Shanghai, the most fashion city of China. With international design talents, the brand culture can be completed understand and more fashion elements are also integrated in the product design. Meanwhile, the engineering and cost advantage are still the important base of new models developing.
- Danyang City has more than 2,000 glasses factories engaged in the eyewear industry and related supporting facilities, employing about 60,000 people. It is known as "the hometown of China's eyeglasses". Danyang is also the largest lens production base in China, and hundreds of millions of lenses are shipped from here to all over the world. According to the deputy director of Danyang Economic Development Bureau, after more than 40 years of integration and development, its products cover all fields of lens industry, with an annual output of more than 100 million frames, accounting for about one-third of the national total, and an annual output of 400 million lenses, it is the world's largest eyeglass production base, the largest distribution center of eyeglass products in Asia and the production base of eyeglasses in China. It is also one of the "Top 100 Industrial Clusters in China".
- Yingtan City is new production base in China in recently years. In the past, most of local people mainly engage in domestic eyewear retail and wholesale business. With their developing, they want to have their own factories. And the local government give lots of preferential policy to attract eyewear investor and manufacturer from other glasses city. Some big factory from Shenzhen and Wenzhou began to move some parts or even all of their production line to Yingtan which bring a lot of job and developing opportunity.
(To be continued…)
Reference：
https://www.pel-eyewear.com/eyewear-testing-and-inspection-blog/best-eyewear-manufacturers-in-china-and-how-to-source-them
https://www.chinaimportal.com/blog/import-sunglasses-eyewear-china/
https://www.quora.com/search?q=china%20eyewear%20supplier
https://www.isunnypacking.com/china-glasses-manufacturers/
Frequently asked questions
Why is so much eyewear made in China?
Because the whole supply ecosystem sits there: acetate sheet, hinges and wire cores, lenses, machinery, tooling and experienced engineers. Japanese, Italian and German component makers run operations in China, so a factory can source, tool and produce without waiting on imports.
Which city in China is best for acetate frames?
Wenzhou, in Zhejiang province, is the centre for acetate and metal optical frames. Most of the polishing, tumbling and assembly expertise for acetate sits in that cluster.
Where are high-end metal and luxury frames produced?
Shenzhen and the Hengliang area are the traditional base for high-end metal frames and luxury work, where thin temples, fine welding and premium plating are common.
Can I visit factories before ordering?
Yes, and you should. A factory tour, in person or by video call, shows the polishing lines, the tumbling barrels and the QC station, which no catalogue photo can prove.