25 years ago, Absen was born in a modest 30-square-meter office in Meilin, Futian, Shenzhen. Its founder, Hansen Ding, an entrepreneur who journeyed from Gansu, China to the south with just 500yuan (RMB) in borrowed money, overcame early hardships and numerous challenges on the road to entrepreneurship. Today, he leads Absen as a global leader in the LED display industry.
From Shenzhen to the world, what has been done right? As the company embarks on a new chapter, how will Absen embrace greater responsibility and purpose? To find out, we sat down with Hansen Ding, Chairman of Absen, for an exclusive interview.
Navigating Global Expansion: Breakthroughs at Critical Moments
Looking back on Absen’s 25-year journey, several key turning points stand out in the memory of Chairman Hansen Ding.
“Our first overseas experience in 2005 opened our eyes to the enormous demand in international markets. Starting with countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq, then expanding into Southeast Asia and Latin America, and later into the U.S., Japan, and Europe—our products have now reached over 140 countries and regions worldwide. The first trip abroad in 2005 was truly a turning point”, recalled Hansen Ding.
The second key milestone came in 2014. Following years of steady growth, Absen had built strong expertise in technological innovation and global market expansion. Reflecting on the company’s product breakthroughs, Chairman Hansen Ding recalled: “ At the time, we had a product—the A1688 high-brightness, energy-efficient LED display—that look the global market by storm and commanded an unrivaled market share.” In 2014, Absen’s annual revenue reached 1 billion RMB, and the company made its debut on China’s A-share market—marking a defining chapter in its history.
In 2020, after years of rapid growth, Absen was suddenly confronted with a series of severe crises. The global pandemic brought its international business—responsible for 80% of total revenue—to a standstill. Meanwhile, a U.S. Section 337 intellectual property investigation reached a critical stage, as so-called “patent troll” Ultravision filed a baseless patent infringement lawsuit against the company. Internally, Absen was also faced a corporate governance crisis and entered a period without a controlling shareholder. At the time, many began to question whether the company could sustain its momentum.
But as event unfolded, Absen proved its exceptional agility and resilience. In 2020, the company redeployed its overseas teams focus on the domestic market, and within just 100 days, it had built a distribution network of over 1,000 partners across 337 cities in Chnia. In June 2021, Absen defied the odds—winning a high-profile U.S. Section 337 intellectual property case with a success rate of only 12%—becoming a landmark example of a Chinese enterprise defending its IP rights overseas and prevailing. In 2022, founder Hansen Ding became the company’s controlling shareholder through a private placement, optimizing governance and restoring stability. Having weathered multiple defining challenges and emerged from its “darkest hour,” Absen has further strengthened its organizational capacity and team cohesion.
Upgrade Brand Tagline: From Product Export to Global Value Leader
On its 25 anniversary, Absen has officially unveiled an upgraded brand tagline—from a “Trusted LED Display Supplier” to a “Global Leader in LED Technology and Solutions.” This strategic evolution reflects the company’s long-term commitment to building a robust management system and sustainable competitive advantages. Absen has developed a well-structured first-and second-tier partnership network along with a strong executive team, supported by standardized processes across digitalization, strategic planning, product management, supply chain management, and financial governance—all aligned with international standards. With six core competencies reinforcing its competitive moat, Absen has also been named one of Deloitte’s “China Best Managed Companies” four times, making it the only company in the LED display industry to receive this honor.
Notably, Absen’s brand upgrade is deeply intertwined with its sense of industry responsibility. Chairman Hansen Ding emphasized that this repositioning is far more than just a marketing change—it represents a fundamental elevation of Absen’s corporate mission. The company is no longer satisfied with simply delivering competitive products and solutions or offering exceptional customer service. Its ambition is to lead the healthy and sustainable development of the LED industry, becoming a benchmark of business integrity, quality, accountability, and shared success. “We hope to inspire thousands of other private Chinese enterprises to join us in shaping such a business civilization,” said Hansen Ding.
The Essence of Technological Leadership: Customer-Oriented Technology Leadership
While many competitors in the industry remain focused on the pixel pitch race, Absen takes a more thoughtful and customer-centric approach to technological innovation. The company believes that innovation without a source or a tree without roots. For Absen, true technological leadership means developing solutions that solve real client problems, create tangible value, and enable long-term, sustainable growth. Only by focusing on client needs can a company survive, scale, and ultimately lead.
Faced with stringent requirements for U.S. advertising clients—demanding outdoor displays with a 10-year warranty and a minimum brightness of 5,000 nits even after long-term use—Absen conducted in-depth research into client needs and pushed product testing in harsh environments, the team developed an outdoor LED display with an initial brightness of 12,000 nits, maintaining over 6,000 nits even after ten years of use. Backed by decade-long warranty, the product continues to see strong demand despite its higher price point compared to competitors.
One of our Hong Kong clients set our display screens on fire inside a subway tunnel—if they didn’t ignite within 15 minutes, we passed. That was just one of their safety standards,” shared the team. In response, Absen’s research and development engineers developed a custom fire-retardant material specifically for this scenario. By meeting such rigorous requirements, Absen earned the client’s trust and successfully secured the project.
“In broadcast studio solutions, the real ‘client’ for an LED display isn’t the human eye—it’s the camera,” noted Hansen Ding. “That’s why technologies like moiré reduction and glare control are the real technical priorities in this scenario.” By reverse-engineering product innovation based on the specific demands of niche solutions, Absen has maintained a 3-4 year lead over competitors in these specialized markets.
Strategic Foresight: Digitalization as a Driver of Cost Advantage
While many companies are still figuring out how to embark on digital transformation, Absen is already reaping the dividends. “In 2024, our net operating cycle was just 36 days—significantly faster than most of our major competitors,” revealed Hansen Ding. This level of operational efficiency allows Absen to handle workloads that would require several times more capital and manpower for peers—ultimately delivering an estimated 20% cost advantage.
This achievement is backed by 18 years of forward-looking planning. “As early as 2007, we began building our IT infrastructure, becoming one of the first companies in China to establish a fully digitalized operational system,” says Hansen Ding. Today, Absen operates 16 end-to-end business processes—strategically driven and customer-oriented—supported by 18 integrated digital platforms. He attributes this success to a disciplined management practices and uncompromising data integrity: “Management must first be institutionalized, processes systematized, and then systems digitalized. Without progressing through these three stages, talk of digital transformation is nothing more than a castle in the air. Another key is data authenticity. If the input data isn’t real, the output is unreliable. And data that can’t support decision-making can’t generate true productivity.”
Looking Ahead: Mission and Responsibility on a New Journey
Aimed today’s fierce market competition, Hansen Ding believes that the LED display industry has yet to produce a 10-billion-level (RMB) enterprise due to several structural challenges: it remains a niche market, experiences rapid technological turnover (with product life cycles as short 2-3 years), requires complex on-site services, suffers from high complaint rates, and is plagued by intense internal competition. These factors make it difficult for companies to scale. He predicts that the LED display industry will eventually follow the consolidation path seen in the mobile phone and television sectors: “Today, there are still dozens of companies with annual revenues over 100 million yuan (RMB), but industry concentration will keep increasing. Eventually, only two or three giants will remain.” As economic cycles and industrial cycles converge, only companies with core technological capabilities, global ecosystem integration, and green compliance advantages will emerge as the ultimate winners.
Against this backdrop, Absen’s renewed brand tagline takes on even greater significance. On one hand, the company actively contributes to shaping industry standards, helping to foster a healthier and more sustainable industry ecosystem. On the other, it uses business as a bridge to promote dialogue and integration across countries, regions, and cultures.
In recent years, Absen has remained committed to hosting various market and technology exchange events, inviting clients and partners from around the world to visit China and experience its Intelligent Manufacturing Center firsthand. These visits allow clients to witness Absen’s manufacturing strength and company culture up close, fostering meaningful dialogue, deeper understanding, and mutual trust. “When clients realize that China is no longer what they once imagined, the mountains of prejudice begin to crumble.”
At 25 years old, Absen is like a vibrant young adult, as Chairman Hansen Ding describes it—“a company in its late twenties”—entering a new chapter of growth and transformation. With a streamlined front-end and platform-based structure, process-driven organization as its backbone, and a culture of sincerity and shared values at its core, Absen is taking with a global vision. From business breakthrough to cross-cultural exchange, Absen is charting a new course. Rooted in the fertile industrial landscape of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Great Bay Area, the company is steadily proving to the world that the high-quality rise of Chinese brands is built on trust, driven by innovation, and sustained by responsibility.
