With the deepening of domestic night economy policies and accelerated urbanization, outdoor lighting and landscape lighting have evolved from an optional decoration into essential projects for urban renewal, commercial attraction and cultural tourism upgrading. Statistics show that China’s outdoor landscape lighting market scale exceeded 520 billion yuan in 2025, with an average annual compound growth rate of 14.7%. Night-time cultural tourism consumption exceeded 4.2 trillion yuan, and lighting-related projects accounted for over 35% of the contribution.
The industry also faces three major pain points: low-end homogenization, uneven product quality and high operation and maintenance costs. Some inferior products dim significantly after only one year of use. Asymmetric information between engineering contractors and manufacturers leads to inflated costs, and traditional static lighting can no longer meet the demand for immersive night tours. In 2026, the industry is accelerating its transformation from price competition to competition in technology, quality and service.
In 2026, continued policy dividends are driving the upgrading of the lighting industry.
Deepening dual-carbon strategy: New regulations require newly built and renovated lighting projects to adopt high-efficiency LED light sources and intelligent dimming systems to control energy consumption. Solar energy and energy storage matching are encouraged, with priority given to products featuring IP66 waterproof rating and a service life of no less than 50,000 hours.
Implementation of new urban lighting regulations: Many regions have issued urban lighting management measures, adhering to the principles of people-orientation, energy conservation, safety and aesthetics. Strict limits are imposed on energy consumption of large building landscape lighting, phasing out high-energy traditional light sources.
15th Five-Year Plan orientation: The lighting industry is clearly guided toward high-end development, intelligence, greening, integration and internationalization. Urban renewal and cultural tourism lighting have become new growth outlets.
AI algorithms are deeply integrated into lighting control, making adaptive light adjustment mainstream. Combined with sensors and visual recognition, the system monitors ambient brightness and pedestrian flow in real time to automatically adjust brightness and color temperature, cutting energy consumption of commercial and building lighting by 30% to 50%. AIGC design tools are widely applied to generate 4K lighting solutions quickly by inputting building photos, improving efficiency by 80%.
Lighting is no longer simple lamp installation, but an integration of culture, technology and art.
Cultural narrative lighting: Light shows reproduce historical scenes along cultural routes, attracting large numbers of tourists.
Immersive interactive experience: DMX512 control system and high-density pixel point lights realize interaction between lighting and visitors, creating vivid and breathing nightscapes.
Invisible design: Lamps are integrated into building facades and bridge structures, adhering to the concept of seeing light without seeing lamps while preserving the original architectural style.
Light strips: LED neon and linear strips adopt full silicone potting and anti-yellowing technology, operating stably in extreme temperatures from -40℃ to 60℃ with IP66 waterproof rating, ideal for long-term outdoor use.
Materials: Aluminum alloy housings and tempered glass provide aging resistance and corrosion protection. PC/PMMA profiles feature UV resistance and anti-deformation performance.
Customization: Demand for non-standard shapes, special contour design and exclusive lighting programs is surging, becoming the core competitiveness of manufacturers.
Urban renewal lighting: Renovation demand for old residential communities, industrial parks, bridges and roads continues to rise. Government projects prioritize reliable, intelligent and energy-saving products and solutions.
Cultural tourism night economy upgrading: Ancient towns, scenic spots and internet-famous blocks have strong demand for immersive light and shadow projects. Enterprises providing one-stop services including design, product supply, construction and operation maintenance gain greater advantages.
Commercial space lighting: Steady demand for shopping malls, hotels and storefront neon lighting, favoring low-cost, high-appearance and easy-maintenance flexible neon strips.
The key for enterprises to break through low-price involution is to focus on segmented tracks, deepen intelligent technology, product quality and customized services, and build differentiated competitiveness.
Shifting from simply brightening the city to intelligent, green and aesthetic nightscapes, the lighting industry is accelerating transformation under the joint drive of policies, technology and market in 2026. Intelligent AI control, green energy saving, cultural light integration and high-quality products have become core themes of the industry.
For enterprises, following policy trends, increasing R&D investment, strictly controlling product quality and optimizing customer services are essential to seize dividends from urban renewal and night economy. Only in this way can enterprises stand out in fierce competition and light up a new landscape of urban night economy with professional lighting technology.
