In the photography community, there has always been a classic joke:

"Photography makes you poor for three generations, SLR ruins your life."

For photography enthusiasts, the camera is just the beginning; the real money pit is often the lenses. A single German Leica or Zeiss lens can easily cost tens of thousands of yuan, and high-end lenses from brands like Canon and Nikon are also expensive.

Just when these international giants firmly occupied the market, a brand from China quietly broke through.

What it first sold was not lenses, but a small accessory that many people tend to overlook—the adapter ring.

Today, this brand has grown into one of the important representatives of Chinese optical brands Tuke, with products sold in over 100 countries and regions worldwide, and annual lens sales steadily exceeding 30,000 units.

It is Viltrox.

So, how did this domestic brand, which started as an OEM factory, step by step break into the photography equipment market long dominated by German and Japanese brands, and successfully open up overseas sales channels?

Today, let's take a look together.

 

Image source:Google

From OEM Factory to Independent Brand: The Counterattack of a Photography Enthusiast

According to public information, the brand's founder, Mr. Dai, is himself a photography enthusiast. As early as2009, he founded Viltrox's parent company, Jueying Technology, mainly engaged in OEM and sales of photography accessories such as flashes and shutter releases.

In 2014-2015, the global imaging industry ushered in a turning point, with Japanese camera giants like Canon and Nikon shifting their R&D focus from traditional SLRs to mirrorless cameras.

Industry iteration gave rise to many market pain points: the vast stock of SLR lenses could not fit the new mirrorless bodies, and the original adapter rings were expensive, making the upgrade cost extremely high for ordinary photography enthusiasts.

Founder Mr. Dai accurately captured this market gap, led the team to focus on a niche track, and developed autofocus adapter rings, solving the core user pain points of incompatibility between old and new lenses and high upgrade costs. With highly compatible and cost-effective products, they quickly seized the market.

In 2017, the Viltrox independent brand was officially established, bidding farewell to the OEM model and starting a new stage of brand development.

 

Image source:Google

Dual Drive of Product and Channel: From Lens Matrix to Global Sales Network

After the brand was established,Viltrox continued to deepen its self-developed optical technology, officially entered the professional mirrorless lens field, and achieved a comprehensive upgrade of its product structure.

In 2019, it released its first autofocus mirrorless lens, AF 85mm F1.8 XF. With its lightweight body, stable focusing performance, and excellent cost performance, it successfully established itself in the global third-party autofocus lens market.

 

Image source:Google

In 2022, the brand launched China's first autofocus ultra-wide-angle lens, AF 13mm F1.4 XF, filling a market gap.

In 2023, Viltrox launched China's first full-frame ultra-wide-angle large-aperture autofocus lens, AF 16mm F1.8, completely breaking the stereotype of Chinese lenses being low-end and cheap.

Strong products are the confidence for Tuke. While refining the product line,Viltrox also simultaneously expanded its overseas sales network, with both online and offline layouts to deeply explore the market.

In terms of offline channels, the brand took the GermanPhotokina World Imaging Expo as its starting point for Tuke, making its debut at an international top imaging exhibition and officially entering the global lens market.

Since then, it has continued to cultivate overseas offline scenarios, exhibiting for many years at the USWPPI, Bangkok IMI Show and other world-renowned imaging exhibitions. Through on-site demonstrations, professional workshops, and photography teaching, overseas users can directly experience the product's performance.

At the same time, the brand has also built a distributor and agent network covering over100 countries and regions worldwide, setting up brand counters and experience stores in core markets such as Europe, America, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.

For online layout,Viltrox adopts a dual-track model of volume sales on third-party platforms + brand building on independent sites.

On one hand, it has fully entered global mainstream cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon,eBay, and AliExpress, relying on the huge public traffic of these platforms to increase product sales and global distribution, quickly penetrating the mass consumer market.

 

Image source: Amazon

On the other hand, it focuses on building the brand's official independent site, which not only breaks free from the rules of third-party platforms and increases single product profit margins, but also allows for precise insight into product demand in different regions worldwide through independent site user data and sales feedback.

After years of iteration,Viltrox has now built a complete lens matrix covering mainstream camera mounts such as Sony, Nikon, Fuji, and Leica. The products cover all scenarios including portrait, ultra-wide-angle, and standard prime lenses, with annual lens sales steadily exceeding 30,000 units, making it a core representative of Chinese optical brands Tuke.

 

Image source:Viltrox

TikTok + Influencer Seeding: Using Authentic Content to Tear Down Prejudice Against "Made in China"

Relying on strong products and a complete global channel,,Viltroxsuccessfully opened up overseas sales channels.But to gain a firm foothold in the market, it is still necessary to break through the user mindset barriers formed by German and Japanese lens brands over the years.

Overseas consumers have long been solidified in their perception of international big brands. To tap into potential customers, efficient brand communication is essential, andTikTok and other mainstream overseas social platforms have becomeViltroxkey tools for breaking through.

OnTikTok, the brand has set up its official account@viltrox.global. Currently, the number of followers has reached 132,200, with a total of 532,700 likes.

 

Image source:TikTok

The account content focuses on real shooting reviews,bygoing to real locations for shooting, intuitively comparing the finished effects, and concretely presenting the actual performance of the lens topotential users.

Take the most viewed video as an example, this video shows the use of Viltrox AF 35mm F1.2 LAB FElens,in both daytime natural light and nighttime low light environmentswitha full test.

Through the video, you can see thatthis lens'sF1.2 ultra-large aperture not only performs excellently during the day, but also performs very well in low-light environments at night.

Currently, this video has garnered2.6 million views, attracting countless photography enthusiasts,using real tests to dispela lot of users' concerns about purchasing.

 

Image source:TikTok

In addition to continuously outputting content from its own account,Viltrox brandalso relies on influencer cooperation to broaden exposure and further enhance brand influence.

In terms of influencer selection logic, the brand abandons the idea of blindly chasing top bloggers, prioritizing photography niche attributes, so many small creators with not many followers can also cooperate.

For example, the photography blogger @nur | hobby photographer, who has only 5,691 followers, hascooperated withViltrox brand before.

 

Image source:TikTok

Different from the conventional product recommendation short videos, the cooperation between the two parties chose the form of a photography works collection, highlighting the lens's imaging power from a professional creative perspective through a slideshow of finished works.

Since its release, this promotional content has received173,500 views and 11,100 likes.Potential users can be seen everywhere in the comments section, with some viewers saying they want to buy, and many others actively inquiring about lens models.

It can be seen thatthe seeding efficiency of niche influencers' real shooting works isveryoutstanding,and plays a great role in promoting the next step of purchase conversion.

 

Image source:TikTok

Final Words

Looking back atViltrox's development path, you will find that it did not choose to compete head-on with international brands such as Canon, Nikon, and Sony.

Whether it was the early adapter rings or the later autofocus lenses, the brand has always been looking for those user needs that are ignored by the giants but truly exist.

This may also be the most valuable lesson for many Chinese brands Tuke.

The real opportunities are often not in the biggest markets.

But in those seemingly inconspicuous problems that have long gone unsolved.

There are still many similar opportunities in today's overseas market.

From consumer electronics to household goods, from tools and equipment to pet products, there are still gaps in demand in many niche tracks.

For Chinese companies, supply chain advantages have never been the scarcest resource.

What is truly rare is the ability to discover demand and the patience to cultivate products over the long term.

And this may bethe real reason why Viltrox was able to grow from an OEM factory to a representative of Chinese optical brands.