technology LEDs
LED-backlit displays and street lighting fuel Taiwan’s LED growth
Tawian’s LED industry has weathered the global economic storm, and it is now recovering fast thanks to increased deployment of this chip in street lighting and
display backlights. The Photonic Industry and Technology Development
Association (PIDA) details the transformation.
T
Taiwan’s LED revenue was flat towards the end of the noughties, but it will pick up over the next few years. Credit: PIDA
he financial crisis brought a global downturn at the very beginning of 2009 that led to a slowdown of market development and a decline in revenue generated by Taiwan’s LED industry. However, strong demand from LED TVs is reviving the industry beyond expectation. It is thought that revenue from Taiwan’s LED industry hit NTD 80 billion ($ 2.5 billion) in 2009, which is 3 percent higher than it was for the previous year. And PIDA analysts predict that the LED industry will do even better in 2010, with the year-on-year revenue growth of 13 percent.
The leading application for Taiwan’s LED products is mobile phones, with a 37 percent share of total revenue, followed by electronic devices, accounting for 32 percent. The market share taken by these two applications slightly shrank in 2009, due to rising revenues in signs/displays and illumination. The former accounts for more than 20 percent of LED sales, and has delivered 5 percent revenue growth compared with 2008, while the share of
LED illumination has increased from 5 percent in 2008 to 7 percent in 2009. PIDA’s analysts forecast continued growth for the next few years generated by the deployment of LEDs in signs/ displays and illumination.
In 2009, LED streetlights and LED-backlit TVs (or LED TVs, the term coined by Samsung) were the applications that attracted the most interest in Taiwan’s LED industry. Regarding LED streetlights, the government collaborated with several industry players to set up three demonstration areas in Taipei city. Later, in June 2009, the Cross-straits LED Forum provided a prime opportunity for a Taiwanese LED player to install a demonstration involving about 1.4 million street lamps in 21 major cities in China. Taiwan- based chipmakers are believed to benefit from China’s insufficient domestic production of LED chips.
LED TVs have taken off beyond industry players’ expectation, and sold half a million units within a hundred days, triggering a battle to launch LED TV among brand name companies including Sony, LG, Sharp, and Toshiba, who are all vying for market share. This has increased demand for LEDs, benefiting Taiwan’s chipmakers and packagers. For example, sales at Taiwan’s largest LED chipmaker, Epistar, have been growing since summer 2009, and in January 2010 they hit NTD 1.3 billion, more than double that for January of the previous year. Another leading LED player, Formosa Epitaxy, has also seen its revenue increase recently. In February 2010 sales hit NTD 203 million. The company has installed 43 MOCVD reactors since the fourth quarter of 2009, and it will add another 55 this year that will give the firm a year-on-year increase in capacity of 40 percent.
Government-backed growth
In order to reflect the industry’s need to commercialize the LED, as well as to put into effect the Energy-Saving and
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www.compoundsemiconductor.net April/May 2010
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