Taiwan’s major LED markers have all seen their March revenue surging beyond expectation, with Formosa Epitaxy Inc. taking the lead with a 68.5% rise from February. Epistar Corp. and Unity Opto Technology Co., Ltd also post robust revenue records.

The recent sudden increase in demands for low-priced mobile phones and netbook computers has stimulated the revenue growth, and unexpectedly brisk demands for LCD TVs have pushed Samsung to increase orders to its LED suppliers including Epistar, Unity and Formosa which are already a part of Samsung’s supply chain.

Epistar’s March revenue soared 32% from a month earlier to NT$910 million (US$26 million), far better than the expected NT$850 million (US$25 million).

The blue LED chip production of Epistar was running close to full capacity in March, according to industry sources, owing to strong demands for low-priced mobile phones in good looks, netbook computers and special-purpose lighting equipment in mainland China as well as Samsung`s brisk LCD-TV shipments. So far, chips for TV backlights have contributed 10% of Epistar’s revenue.

Formosa had its March revenue of NT$118 million (US$3.4 million), up 68.5% from February. The impressive growth has been attributed mostly to the rising demands for LED backlights for small-size and large-size LCD panels.

The April revenue of the company is expected to continue rising given that global shipments of LCD TVs and notebook computers have been ramping up since the beginning of this quarter.

Unity Opto shipped 50% more LED backlight modules for mobile phones in March than in February. The company executives pointed out the market has begun bottoming back as retailers’ inventory backlogs running below safety levels. Prompted by increasing orders, the company has forecast the second quarter revenue to rise up 50% from the first quarter.