It’s reported that Lite-On Technology Corp., a world leading supplier of mobile keypads, is venturing into the LEDchip market by investing US$10 million in SemiLEDs Corp., a U.S. producer of high-power LED chips.

In fact, Lite-On has been producing LEDs for notebook PC backlights as Taiwan`s first supplier of this kind, having already shipped between 7 million and 8 million units this July. At the end of this year, the company is expected to post annual shipment of between 10 million and 15 million units. The product line is even expected to lend major growth momentum to its business operation next year.

Now, Lite-On is the foremost supplier building fully integrated supply chain of LEDs among Taiwan high-tech companies, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Delta Electronics Inc., AU Optronics Corp., Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp. and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., who all have moved to produce LEDs.
 
Teng Kuang-chung, CEO of Lite-On, noted that SemiLEDs`s current non-MOCVD production process can effectively help their company to achieve cost efficiency in producing high-power LED chips, adding that this cutting-edge production capability enticed Lite-On to invest US$10 million in the company. At the same time, Lite-On is very optimistic about the market outlook of LEDs for notebook PC backlights, because presently LED-backlit notebook PCs commands a 15% share of overall global sales of notebook PCs, with only 3% of such models adopting Lite-On`s LEDs.

Lite-On posted sales revenue of NT$37.5 billion, pretax profits of NT$1.696 billion and net profits of NT$1.354 billion, or NT$0.63 per share, for the second quarter of this year. With efforts on production of LEDs gradually paying off, the company`s second-quarter gross profit rate grew to 10% from 8.7% posted in the first quarter. With a seasonal boom to hit the LED sector in the third quarter, the company projects its sales of the product to further rise 10% from the second quarter.