Taiwan's Top-2 LED Makers See 2013 Revenues Hit New Highs
2014/01/21 | By Ken Liu
Everlight, the world's No.1 LED packager by volume, had revenue of NT$24.6 billion (US$823 million) by the end of 2013, up 29.58% year on year.
Although the company's revenue for the fourth quarter contracted 3.29% from the previous quarter, to NT$6.7 billion (US$225.3 million), the result was better than expected and the second highest in the company's quarterly-revenue history. In December alone, its revenue inched up 0.09% from a month earlier, beating expectations that the company's revenue for that month would be affected by downtime due to checking inventory backlogs.
Epistar, the world's No.1 supplier of blue LED chips by volume, raked in revenue of NT$22.2 billion (US$741.6 million) by the end of 2013, with Q4 revenue beating low-season factor to rise 6.1% from the third quarter to NT$6.1 billion (US$203.5 million) and hitting a 10-year high.
Industry executives ascribe the better-than-expected fourth quarter result mostly to brisker demands for blue chips and four-element chips than expected.
According to market consultant LEDinside, Epistar's 2013 revenue shows that not a single LED chipmaker in China can challenge Epistar given the total US$849 million (NT$25.4 billion) of revenue generated by the China's LED chip-making industry as a whole. The mainland's top five makers together were responsible for 64.4% of the 2013 revenue, which represented a 17% increase from 2012.
Nevertheless, the market organization warns that the rising Chinese chipmakers are nibbling at shares of Taiwan's and international chipmakers in the global market.
Citing data, LEDinside points out that China's homemade chips filled around 80% of the supplies in China in 2013, with the top-5 local suppliers seeing their share increase to 64.4% of the total from 2012's 61.9%. (KL)