In Taiwan, 80% of solar LED traffic signs on highways are from SUNMADE Inc., which are not only green and energy-saving, but also durable with warranty as long as 7 years, making road traffic safer and sound. SUNMADE Inc. newly rolls out SUNMADE Dots, a ground-breaking technology used in traffic signs. Green Trade Project Office (GTPO) under Taiwanese government helps craft marketing strategies for the technology, from product development, marketing and trade shows. SUNMADE is therefore able to open up Europe and Middle East markets and make made-in-Taiwan (MIT) products known to global customers.

Decades of Experiences in Traffic Engineering
SUNMADE Inc. was founded as a traffic engineering company and dedicated to solar LED traffic signs at first. Like many SMEs in Taiwan, SUNMADE made its success with persistence in niche markets. SUNMADE’s solar LED traffic signs are adopted by Taiwan’s highways with the market share of 80% due to products benefits, such as low energy consumption, no-wire easy installation, and better visibility than traditional reflective signs.

Continuing the success, SUNMADE recently developed the technology-SUNMADE Dots and applied to signs to reduce sun glare effect. SUNMADE Dots refracts sun glare to light up traffic signs to increase viewable range, which turns the obstacle that haunts road users into a boost in enhancing traffic safety. With worldwide patents, SUNMADE Dots has great potential in multiple countries. However, like many SMEs in Taiwan, SUNMADE is capable of providing good products and services but needs support in brand building and global marketing.

Good Products Need Effective Marketing
GTPO started to support SUNMADE in 2017 by counseling with the company, finding its market position and providing product development directions. In 2018, SUNMADE introduced the market, ‘green anti- sunglare signage’, a series of innovative products in traffic engineering. Green Trade Project recommended SUNMADE to adopt a more creative marketing strategy for the new products: re-designing product catalog, shooting micro-movies for products and brand images, introducing the company and its services to offshore markets in a systematic manner. All these efforts came to bear fruit in 2019 when SUNMADE went to Poland and Qatar for trade shows. Local governments liked the idea of green and innovative traffic signs, then soon placed pilot run orders on SUNMADE Dots to be installed on highways.

Lieh-Hsiung Hu, General Manager of SUNMADE Inc., said that in the perspective of road traffic safety, countries around the world have failed to solve sun glare /sun-dazzle problems. The only exception might be Japan, where traffic signs were drilled with many small holes to reduce sun glare effect, but the optical angles is too small, and visible range is too short to work. In comparison, SUNMADE utilized its unique SUNMADE Dots technology in anti- sunglare traffic signs, which ‘borrows’ ambient light to lit up signs.  Traffic signs can therefore be seen in a longer distance even in a sun glare scenario.

 SUNMADE Expands Exposure in Europe and Middle East
“We know how to make great products, but have little experience in marketing, therefore we needed assistance from the Green Trade Project.” Hu said. In 2018, SUNMADE visited ASEAN nations, attended local trade shows and found potential clients in Malaysia and Singapore by partaking in the Taiwanese government’s “New Southbound” policy. In 2019, SUNMADE went to Poland with GTPO’s ITRI team and introduced their SUNMADE Dots products to Rzeszow city government officials. The Rzeszow city government immediately placed trial orders, which is currently undergoing product certification procedures and is expected to ship out in 2021.

In 2019, SUNMADE also went to Qatar, one of the richest middle-east nations with GTP and participated in “Project Qatar 2019”, the global trade show for building materials. “Qatar government’s public engineering officials came to SUNMADE’s booth and invited SUNMADE to brief to the government the next day. The successful presentation lead to introduce anti- sunglare and solar LED signs to their highways, ” Hu said.  This project was originally scheduled to be completed by the end of 2020, but was delayed by COVID-19 till early 2021.

New Milestones in Smart Traffic
SUNMADE Inc. successfully promoted its green traffic signs from Taiwan to global market. As green and energy-saving are more and more valued among international society, SUNMADE holds a good position and ambitiously crafts a roadmap for wider market access with smart traffic system. On top of LED and anti- sunglare signages, SUNMADE is also developing its smart traffic solutions that can further improve road safety and inform road-users with more information in real-time. SUNMADE also developed a series of smart traffic signs such as on-coming vehicles early warning, pedestrian crossing warning, rain and fog detection and warning and etc. These warning systems integrate with IoT connection so that traffic data can be sent via cloud to the control center for data analysis and realize the ultimate goal of smart traffic.