Introduction
The optics lens and camera module industry combines optical design, precision manufacturing, and modern information technology. It draws on geometric optics, colorimetry, thermodynamics, precision mechanics, and electronics, resulting in high technical content and barriers to entry. End products across different segments impose diverse optical performance requirements, forcing lens and camera module manufacturers to develop long-term expertise in specific core technologies and manufacturing processes. As these components penetrate more electronic products and devices, the required on-board optical technologies must continuously iterate and innovate to address different use scenarios.
Industry Overview
Industry chain
Optical lenses and camera modules sit in the midstream of the optical industry chain. A lens focuses a scene onto film or an image sensor to form an optical image. A camera module integrates the lens with an image sensor and electronic components into an optical-electronic assembly. The module converts the optical signal captured by the lens into electrical signals via the image sensor, then the image processor converts those signals into digital image data for further digital signal processing and final video output.
Upstream suppliers include optical raw materials (glass blanks, optical resins), optical components (prisms, lenses, filters), and electronic components (CMOS image sensors, connectors, gyroscopes, PCBs, etc.). Midstream comprises lens and camera module manufacturers, who design and produce based on downstream application requirements. Downstream applications include consumer electronics, automotive electronics, security surveillance, and machine vision, among others.
Glass Optical Lens Manufacturing Processes
The manufacturing process for glass spherical lenses from glass blanks to finished lenses generally includes: rough cutting, sanding, grinding, centering, coating, bonding, and ink marking. The stages rough cutting, sanding, and grinding are called the front-end process; centering, coating, bonding, and ink marking are called the back-end process. Lenses after the front-end processing are semifinished; after the full sequence they are finished products.
Industry Development History
The primary function of optical lenses is image formation; as core components in imaging systems, lens performance directly affects image quality, algorithm effectiveness, and device outcomes.
Industry development can be divided into three stages:
- Early stage (early 19th century to the 1980s): emergence and technical accumulation. German and Japanese firms rose rapidly through R&D and established leading positions; companies like Zeiss, Canon, and Nikon remain representatives of advanced lens manufacturing.
- Growth stage (1990s to the late 1990s): rapid growth of Japanese optics, which leveraged cost-performance advantages to dominate market share and build strong manufacturing capabilities.
- Modern expansion (21st century to present): manufacturing processes matured and costs fell, enabling diffusion of manufacturing know-how to neighboring regions including Korea, Taiwan, and mainland China. Recent growth in new-energy vehicles, security monitoring, and consumer electronics, plus the spread of connectivity and intelligent technologies across devices, has widened lens application scenarios. Products such as automated driving systems, smart home devices, action cameras, VR/AR devices, and drones have increased demand for lenses and modules. Over the past decade, Chinese lens manufacturers have accumulated technical capabilities in automotive, consumer electronics, and security applications, producing major market participants such as Shunyu Optical Technology, Liding Optoelectronics, Lianchuang Electronics, Yutong Optical, and Hongjing Optoelectronics.
Lens Classification
1. By focal length variability
Lenses are classified as fixed-focus (prime) lenses or zoom lenses. Prime lenses have a single fixed focal length; zoom lenses cover a range. The company's products are prime lenses.
2. By lens material
Based on lens material, lenses are classified as glass, plastic, or glass-plastic hybrid. Plastic lenses are highly moldable, easy to form into aspheres, support miniaturization and low cost, and are widely used in smartphones and digital cameras. Glass lenses offer higher surface accuracy, higher transmittance, and better durability, and are used in high-end action/panoramic cameras, machine vision, and automotive cameras. Hybrid lenses combine glass and plastic elements to balance transmittance, durability, and cost, and are often used in smart-home cameras, security cameras, and automotive cameras.
Performance Differences by Application
Different application fields emphasize different optical and structural performance. The performance comparison among digital surveillance, smartphones, automotive, smart home, and panoramic/action cameras is shown below:
Industry Trends
(1) Diversifying downstream application scenarios
Lenses are the core components of imaging systems. Since the 20th century, optoelectronic technology has advanced rapidly and lens applications have expanded from microscopy, telescopes, and film cameras to surveillance, digital cameras, camcorders, and smartphones. With the rapid development of mobile internet, IoT, and artificial intelligence, lens applications have further extended into automated driving, smart home, action cameras, VR/AR, drones, 3D sensing, and machine vision, creating new demand for lenses and camera modules.
(2) Optical thin-film technology as a key technical focus
As downstream applications demand higher imaging quality, modern optical imaging trends toward higher precision. Optical thin films are multilayer coatings of alternating high and low refractive index materials deposited on substrates. By precisely controlling layer thicknesses, these multilayer stacks modify optical paths to achieve transmission, reflection, polarization separation, and spectral filtering in specific wavelength bands. Thin films offer polarization splitting, anti-reflection, and nanometer-level spectral control that current alternatives cannot match, and they significantly affect downstream algorithm performance. Improving and effectively applying thin-film technology is a critical industry focus.
(3) Growth in glass aspheric lens usage due to high-resolution and wide field-of-view demands
Glass spherical lenses inherently introduce aberrations and often require multiple elements to correct those aberrations, increasing volume and weight and reducing transmittance. Glass aspheric lenses correct spherical aberration via aspheric coefficients, improving imaging quality and often replacing multiple spherical elements with a single aspheric element. As applications such as automated driving and smart home demand higher resolution and wider fields of view, demand for glass aspheric lenses is expected to rise.
(4) Combined use of different lens materials to enhance performance
Lens designers increasingly combine materials and characteristics to meet performance requirements. Hybrid glass-plastic assemblies reduce thickness and distortion while improving image clarity and aperture, balancing image quality, volume, weight, and mass-production capability. Combining materials with different dispersion properties can correct chromatic aberration across visible and infrared bands. Pairing elements with different thermal expansion coefficients mitigates temperature-related effects and improves environmental durability, broadening application scenarios.
Market Size
(1) Global market
With the integration of 5G, AI, cloud computing, and IoT, the lens market has significant growth potential. According to industry research, the global lens market grew from CNY 18.16 billion in 2015 to CNY 61.58 billion in 2022 and reached CNY 68.28 billion in 2023, representing a compound annual growth rate of about 18.0%. Growth is driven by high-end trends in cameras and smartphones as well as emerging applications in automotive, smart home, and surveillance.
(2) China market
According to the China Optics and Optoelectronics Manufacturers Association, China’s optical components market expanded more than tenfold over the past decade, reaching CNY 140 billion in 2020. Industry data indicate China’s lens market reached CNY 14.036 billion in 2021, with a compound annual growth rate of 10.85% from 2017 to 2021.
Another report estimates China’s lens supply was 3.525 billion units in 2020 and is expected to reach 6.331 billion units by 2027.
Downstream Segment Development
With advances in information and electronic technologies and improved living standards, lenses have expanded from traditional optical instruments into automotive autonomous driving, surveillance, and smart home scenarios. Industrial and consumer upgrading in China has broadened lens applications and supported sustainable industry development. Downstream development stages and trends closely influence the lens industry.
(1) Automotive
Overview
As 5G matures and IoT ecosystems develop, vehicles are becoming important IoT endpoints. Vehicle intelligence and automated driving are major development directions. Sensors act as the vehicle’s eyes, sensing the environment for automated driving. Typical sensors include vehicle cameras, LiDAR, millimeter-wave radar, and ultrasonic sensors. Each sensor type has trade-offs in precision, range, environmental robustness, and cost, so sensor fusion is the mainstream approach. Vehicle cameras capture real-scene imagery for extracting shapes, colors, and other features for object and sign recognition via deep learning, providing 360-degree perception and complementing radar shortcomings in object classification.
By function, vehicle cameras are divided into imaging cameras for passive recording and perception cameras for active safety requiring accurate image capture. By location, they are front, surround, rear, side, and interior cameras. Front cameras enable ADAS features such as forward collision warning, lane departure warning, traffic sign recognition, and pedestrian detection, and are typically higher-spec and higher-cost. Side cameras detect lateral blind spots, surround-view systems use wide-angle or fisheye lenses to stitch 360-degree views for parking and environment perception, rear cameras use wide-angle lenses for reversing assistance, and interior cameras monitor driver status for fatigue detection.
Market size and growth
The automotive industry has become an important pillar of China’s economy, and vehicle ownership has grown rapidly over the past decade. Under technological and policy drives, electrification, intelligence, connectivity, and sharing are shaping the industry. IDC forecasts that by 2025 the installation rate of smart connectivity systems in vehicles will reach 83%, with shipments of 24.9 million units and a 2021–2025 CAGR of 16%.
SAE defines automated driving levels L0-L5; the number of onboard cameras increases with level. Average cameras per vehicle are projected to rise from 1.7 in 2018 to 3.0 in 2023. ADAS penetration (L2+) is expected to grow from about 5% in 2020 to 20% in 2025 and 65% by 2035. As automation levels increase, the required number of cameras per vehicle will continue to rise.
Market research indicates the global in-vehicle camera market reached USD 17.3 billion in 2021 (with OEM market at approximately USD 12.2 billion) and is expected to reach USD 35.5 billion by 2026 (OEM market USD 30.6 billion). Vehicle camera module shipments were about 185 million units in 2021 and are forecast to reach 649 million units by 2035. Global camera module sales were USD 0.85 billion in 2021 and are expected to reach USD 3.1 billion by 2035.
Future trends
Vehicle cameras must satisfy wide operating temperatures and environmental robustness. Standards require operation from -40°C to 85°C, water immersion resistance, magnetic and vibration resistance, and lifetimes of 8–10 years. As automated driving progresses from L2 to L3, environment perception requirements increase. Lens suppliers advance optical simulation, coating technology, and structural design to reduce flare and ghosting from headlights and sun, and to enhance dust/water resistance, vibration tolerance, and low-light performance. Vehicle lenses typically require wide angles, high relative brightness, and high throughput, while camera pixels trend upward from 1MP to 2MP and eventually toward 8MP for ADAS applications.
As autonomy levels rise, lens parameters such as focal length, aperture, distortion, resolution, thermal stability, waterproofing, and vibration resistance will face higher requirements across front, rear, and surround cameras.
(2) Smart home visual products
Overview
Smart home is a major IoT application with large market potential. Mainstream smart home devices include visual, voice, and touch interfaces. Visual products take an active sensing approach to perceive and output results or suggestions for users. Typical consumer visual devices include home security cameras, smart peepholes, video doorbells, smart speakers with vision, smart TVs, and robot vacuum cleaners with vision.
Smart home visual systems embed camera modules into appliances to provide functions such as visual unlocking for smart locks. These systems stream video over wireless links, with front-end devices handling image capture and some detection/recognition, while cloud platforms provide storage, device control, and alerting. Smart visual products are easy to install and use, and they offer visual security, communication, and sharing services for households.
Market size and growth
Driven by 5G, IoT, and consumption upgrades, smart home has grown rapidly. Statista reported a global smart home market of USD 27.6 billion in 2020, with projected CAGR near 15% in the following years, reaching USD 47.1 billion by 2024. Global home camera shipments were 88.89 million units in 2020 and are expected to exceed 200 million units by 2025, with a 2021–2025 CAGR around 19.3%. The home camera market value was CNY 37.3 billion in 2020, with a projected 14.1% CAGR through 2025, surpassing CNY 70 billion by 2025.
Future trends
Home visual products evolved from surveillance origins to independent markets. In the smart home 2.0 era, visual capabilities deeply integrate with home systems, expanding device functionality. By the 3.0 era, multiple hardware platforms and scenarios broaden the user experience. In a projected 4.0 era, visual systems will coordinate whole-home automation toward autonomous sensing, feedback, and control.
(3) Panoramic and action cameras
Overview
A. Action cameras
Action cameras record dynamic sports scenes and can be mounted on poles, helmets, boards, bicycles, or bodies to capture first-person perspectives. They are compact, portable, and designed for shock, water, dust, and temperature resistance, often with excellent stabilization. Recent developments integrate panoramic capabilities with action-focused features.
B. Panoramic cameras
Panoramic cameras stitch images from multiple views to create 360° panoramic photos or videos. They map real scenes into panoramic images for virtual reality browsing, enabling free viewpoint switching and offering full coverage and realism. Panoramic devices range from consumer 360° cameras to VR cameras with stereoscopic depth. More cameras generally yield higher quality; two-camera devices are consumer-level, while four to eight or more cameras target commercial use.
Market size and growth
As cloud computing and high-definition streaming grow, demand for high-end lenses and modules in consumer imaging products will increase.
A. Action cameras
Action cameras are versatile beyond sports and are increasingly used in TV production and live broadcasts. Frost & Sullivan reported the global action camera market at CNY 23.77 billion in 2021, projected to reach CNY 46.00 billion by 2026 with a 2017–2026 CAGR of 14.2%.
B. Panoramic cameras
Panoramic video provides interactive engagement on social platforms and finds professional uses in telemedicine and smart city applications. Frost & Sullivan reported the global panoramic camera market at CNY 3.61 billion in 2021, expected to reach CNY 6.31 billion by 2026 with a 2017–2026 CAGR of 10.8%.
Trends
Miniaturization and wearability are prominent trends. Traditional manufacturers are shifting focus from DSLRs to compact mirrorless and action cameras. Examples include compact wearable devices launched in recent years that emphasize portability. Panoramic technology continues to expand into video, education, medical, sports, and security applications, widening use cases for panoramic/action cameras.
Competitive Landscape
Different application scenarios impose varying requirements on focal length, resolution, aperture, image plane, aberration control, and size, producing diverse technical challenges. Firms select targeted segments based on their technical strengths, resulting in differentiated competition.
In automotive, high reliability and long certification cycles make suppliers sticky once approved. Surround and rear-view lenses have lower resolution requirements and higher competition, while DMS and ADAS lenses require high imaging quality, thermal stability, wide field of view, compact size, and durability, reducing competitor numbers. Market reports indicate Shunyu Optical Technology led global vehicle lens shipments in 2021 with a 34.8% share, followed by firms such as Japan-based Maxell, Nidec Sankyo, and South Korea-based Sekonix. Domestic suppliers continue to advance key technologies to capture market share. ADAS and CMS remain emerging areas, offering room for new entrants.
In consumer panoramic/action cameras, global leaders include Insta360, Ricoh, and GoPro. Market concentration is high; these brands typically source modules from a single supplier per model, increasing module-level concentration. Leading module suppliers include Hongjing Optoelectronics, Lianchuang Electronics, and Shunyu Optical Technology. In smart home, product categories are broad and market concentration is lower; competition is intense. As the market matures toward higher resolution and smaller form factors, companies with technical and scale advantages are likely to capture more share and increase market concentration.
