Taiwan's LED Executives Feel Optimistic About LED Lighting

While Epistar Corp. Chairman B.J. Lee feels that over the next five years the LED lighting market will grow briskly, coupled with tripling of indoor-application demand this year, the Lite-On Technology Group's president, G.C. Chen echoed the same sentiment and Everlight Electronics Co., Ltd. Chairman Y.F. Yeh claimed that the LED industry had emerged from its abyss, which summed up the three executives' diagnosis of the LED industry at the Photonics Festival in Taiwan 2013, a trade fair held mid-June encompassing LED lighting, LCD display, opto-communications, horticultural, photovoltaic, and optics.

Although LED lighting penetration is projected at 1-2% worldwide this year, Lee estimates the rate to rise to over 5% next year, with this lighting technology being at the beginning of the S-shaped life cycle. Epistar is the world's No.1 supplier of blue LED chips by capacity.

Epistar's chips are integrated into backlights for Hon Hai Precision's 70-inch 4000 x 2000 pixel LCD TVs, which were debuted at the 2013 show. Lee noted that the growth of such TVs is productive for his company because it means greater demand for LEDs to boost backlight by 30%.

Lite-On's Chen says that although the future of LED-lighting industry looks bright, it is a challenging business for his company due to diversified markets and suppliers, unlike PC and mobile phone industries being dominated by world's top-10 players.

But Chen is confident of the company's future, as an American high-tech company has contracted Lite-On to produce a unique LED bulb using the American company's patented thermal-dissipation, omni-directional, and optic-lens designs. Its subsidiary, Lite-On IT Corp., will fill the order using automated assembly lines.

Chen vows to retake Taiwan's lead in LED bulb supply from Everlight Electronic Co., Ltd. In conjunction with Lite-On's plan to accelerate growth of its LED lighting business, the company will boost output of lighting products by 20-50% this year.

Everlight's Yeh says that, with aggressive promotion of LED lighting at lighting fairs in Taiwan and China, LED lighting will become an inevitable trend in China, where notable progress in LED lighting exterior and mechanical upgrades are encouraging developments for LED device suppliers like his company.