On March 26, Shanghai Luoman Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to hereinafter as “Luoman”) released its 2023 annual report. In 2023, the company achieved a business revenue of RMB 610 million, an increase of 95.39% compared to the previous year, and successfully turned losses into a net profit of RMB 80.5393 million attributable to shareholders of the listed company.

In recent years, Luoman has maintained its focus on landscape lighting as its core, optimized its core strategy, and built three major sectors: urban lighting, digital-smart energy, and digital entertainment. In the view of Sun Kaijun, chairman and general manager of Luoman, the long-term development of enterprises requires strategic vision, and transformation and upgrading are the necessary paths for traditional industries to achieve sustained development. Under the intrinsic cyclical nature of economic development, a multi-industry layout is needed to transcend cycles, allowing enterprises to develop sustainably. “And Yangpu’s favorable business environment provides a broad range of scenario applications for enterprises’ early trials and transformation upgrades.”

With Light as the Brush, Painting a Beautiful Life of Happiness

During the Spring Festival, the Wujiaochang commercial district staged the "Dragon Soaring to Prosperity, Welcoming the New Year" building light show, outlining the festive atmosphere and rich flavor of the holiday with traditional patterns, offering abundant blessings to citizens. The lighting enhancement project in Wujiaochang is not only a beautiful card for Yangpu but also a key link in the city's digital transformation.

In the construction of smart cities, Yangpu adopts advanced digital technologies, achieving intelligent monitoring of city management and services through a cloud platform. Today, whether in the Wujiaochang commercial district or the Yangpu Riverside Show Belt, the unique charm of the nights attracts many citizens and tourists to participate in nighttime cultural and commercial activities, providing strong support for the thriving night economy. And behind the technological support is the home-grown Yangpu enterprise—Luoman.

Stepping into the Luoman City O&M Control Center located on the Yangpu Riverside, the monitoring big screen displays real-time updates of the company’s night scene lighting design and projects across hundreds of cities nationwide, including the Riverside landscape lighting renovation project in Shanghai’s Huangpu District, the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan light show, the night scene lighting planning in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, as well as in Shangri-La, Yunnan, Kashgar Old City, Xinjiang, and the Wuhou District Music Square in Chengdu. “Our personnel use IoT intelligent sensing and control technologies to achieve remote monitoring and intelligent scheduling of the lighting system,” says Yang Wenhao, vice president of the Luoman City O&M Division. He explains that the intelligent management platform can perform strategy configurations through various planning modes, achieving multi-level and multi-type refined management.  Simultaneously, the platform can also connect to multimedia digital lighting control equipment, thereby realizing dynamic effects of night scene lighting.

Urban lighting is the company's traditional core business. Luoman was established in Yangpu in 1999, went public on the main board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2021, and is a leading urban lighting integrator in China. The company specializes in the comprehensive planning and design, construction, and implementation of urban and regional landscape lighting and energy-saving renovation projects.

In 2023, with Shanghai and Chengdu as its dual centers, Luoman pushed forward with benchmark replication, accelerating the nationwide layout of its landscape lighting business and expanding its market share. The company continued to deeply cultivate the East China market, made precise efforts in the Southwest market, and reached strategic collaborations with multiple cities. Among them, the "Wujiaochang region landscape lighting enhancement project" and the "lighting project for the outstanding historical building at No. 505 Dongchangzhi Road" were awarded the "Lighting Engineering Design Award" by the China Illuminating Engineering Society. The Wujiaochang project also stood out at the 2023 China International Lighting Fixture Design Competition, winning the second prize in the category of Landscape Lighting Special Project (Design and Construction Integration).

"Green Electricity" Lights Up the City, Helping Achieve the "Dual Carbon" Objective

Lighting is an energy-intensive industry, but modern lifestyles also make nighttime an important time for activities. How can we balance these two aspects and find a path to green urban development?

Recently, the photovoltaic project on the corridor of Yangpu District Central Hospital successfully landed and started generating electricity. The project fully utilized the pedestrian passageway connecting the new and old buildings of the hospital, adopting high-efficiency monocrystalline silicon modules and BIPV waterproof bracket designs, with a total capacity of 44kW. While providing shelter from the sun and rain for patients and offering convenience for medical visits, the corridor also supplies green energy to the hospital, becoming a model for practicing the "dual carbon" strategy within Shanghai's medical system. It is estimated that over its lifecycle, the project will generate more than 500,000 kWh of green electric power.

In recent years, Luoman has explored the business model of "green electricity lighting up the city," using an "integrated operation solution of green energy + green lighting," combining wind, light, and storage to formulate energy solutions for municipal, hospital, school, and other characteristic application scenarios.

Additionally, the company has completed the construction of a digital comprehensive energy management platform in the energy sector. To meet the needs of routine operation and management, it adopts Internet of Things and digital technologies to achieve real-time data monitoring of photovoltaic generation, photovoltaic grid-connection indicators, carbon indicators, and carbon reduction amounts. The new energy power station cloud data center provides users with professional energy monitoring, data processing and analysis, data management, and comprehensive display. Through electric power system fault warnings and intelligent control, it effectively enhances the operational management efficiency of new energy power stations, providing strong big data support for investment and construction decisions of power stations.

From “Luoman Lighting” to “Luoman Technology”

In March this year, "Shanghai Luoman Lighting Technology Co., Ltd" officially changed its name to "Shanghai Luoman Technology Co., Ltd." This change from “Luoman Lighting” to “Luoman Technology” also reflects Luoman's emphasis on technological innovation from one perspective.

Yangpu is rich in university resources. As a high-tech enterprise, Luoman established a collaboration with the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology as early as 2015, setting up an “academician and expert work station.” In recent years, the company has continued to increase its R&D investments in fields such as energy and AI, deeply researching intelligent lighting and digital energy management systems. It has perfected capabilities in precise control, fine management, and data analysis, achieving “one platform to manage everything, one platform to oversee everything,” and creating a benchmark demonstration application for the entire industry. It has also introduced “drones + AI vision” for safety inspections of lighting on high-rise buildings, using technology to ensure safety and further enhance the precision and efficiency of management. In 2023, the company added 27 new patents and 24 software copyrights, accumulating a total of 90 patents and 79 software copyrights.

On the other hand, Luoman, through resource integration, optimized its industry chain investment layout, enhancing business synergy and core competitiveness. Luoman entered into a strategic collaboration with Holovis, a global leader in sensory experience innovation and solutions, establishing the wholly-owned subsidiary Shanghai Holovis Digital Technology Co., Ltd., and obtaining the domestic exclusive rights to use 22 proprietary technologies from the British Holovis company.

Stepping into Holovis, a door with a sci-fi feel slowly opens. Upon entering, a nearly 300 square meter exhibition hall showcases the company's digital entertainment projects that have been launched or are about to be launched. Here, you can immerse yourself in the vast universe, exploring the Milky Way from the first-person perspective of the spacecraft "Chaser," or transform into a miniature figure in a LEGO factory, experiencing the metaverse world up close. The former is a simplified version of the "Voyage Across the Galaxy Theater" at the Shanghai Astronomy Museum, while the latter is part of the ongoing construction project of the Shenzhen LEGOLAND Resort.

Currently, Luoman is strategically positioning itself in various application scenarios such as theme parks, large commercial malls, A-grade tourist attractions, and science and exhibition venues. With brand-new immersive experiences and virtual-real interactions, it is creating multiple demonstration applications to chart the company’s second growth curve.

Simultaneously, the company is actively exploring the overlay application of wearable devices like AR glasses and MR/VR headsets in traditional tourist experiences, utilizing new interactive technologies to empower intelligent cultural tourism and creating digital tourist attraction projects. Among these, the "MetaCity Mita City 1933 project" involving Holovis has become one of Shanghai's first major metaverse application scenario construction projects. Long before, Sun Kaijun had been contemplating the digital transformation of the enterprise. "To stimulate vitality in a city, there must be engaging activities for people; what those activities are, is the direction we aim to pursue."

"Luoman has achieved remarkable results in landscape lighting, urban micro-renewal, and digital cultural tourism, aligning perfectly with Yangpu's future development direction," stated Xue Kan, the district's party secretary, during a recent visit and inspection of Luoman. He expressed hope that Luoman would seize the opportunities of digital transformation, capture new competitive tracks, foster new drivers, continuously enhance its core competitiveness, and contribute to the high-quality development of Yangpu’s digital industry.  "Yangpu will continue to care for and support enterprises, fully providing the necessary policy support and service guarantees."

It is understood that Luoman will continue to adhere to its basic positioning as an urban service provider, strategically layout three major business sectors, and actively expand into overseas markets. The urban lighting sector will continue to refine its full lifecycle service model of "design + construction + O&M + continuous updating," solidifying its leadership brand in the industry. The digital entertainment sector will transform and upgrade through "technology + creativity," establishing a leading global brand for experiential design and creating a stable second growth curve. The intelligent energy sector will innovate through new models and scenario re-creation, deeply embodying "green energy +," and becoming a leader in integrated solution innovations based on scenario applications.

Walking beneath the company’s building along Yangpu Riverside, reflecting on over a decade of pursuing light, Sun Kaijun contemplates what has changed and what remains the same. What has changed is the landscape around her—from the "Industrial Rust Belt" to the "Lifestyle Show Belt." Today’s Yangpu Riverside, with its enriched public spaces combining cultural creativity, fashion vitality, art leisure, and ecological wilderness, has transformed remarkably. "How fortunate it is that Luoman has been one of the architects of this transformation." What remains unchanged is her initial resolve—whether it was the fresh but earnest young woman who had just returned to start a business, or the now seasoned leader steering a listed company at the forefront of design and technological innovation, Sun Kaijun’s founding vision has never wavered: "With light as my brush, I paint a more beautiful city."