Panasonic is announced to make a restructuring plan aimed at quickly snatching up sizable share of mainland China market for LED lighting. And Taiwan’s LED Industry may benefit from the plan.
In January 2012, the Japanese company is to combine the LED lighting operation with the independent Panasonic Lighting with the aim of bagging around 40% of the Chinese mainland’s market for LED lighting by the end of 2015 and boosting profit by 10% through halving costs.
According to Panasonic, the consolidated entity’s sales to reach 200 billion yen (US$2.5 billion at US$1:78 yen ) in 2015, spiking from the projected 32.3 billion yen (US$414 million) for 2011 Panasonic Lighting and the Panasonic’s lighting operations.
Currently, Panasonic is selling over 2,000 types of LED lighting fixtures and 30 types of LED light bulbs in Japan. Panasonic has commanded 35% of Japan’s market for LED lighting, higher than recorded by Toshiba and Sharp. LED lighting penetration in Japan has reached 30%. Panasonic estimated such a high penetration would be achieved in mainland China soon.
Taiwan’s LED chip and package suppliers such as Epistar Inc., Lite-On Technology Corp., Lextar Electronics Corp., Unity Opto Technology Co., Ltd., Edison Opto Corp., and Ligitek Electronics Co., Ltd., may benefit from Panasonic’s cost-reduction plan as their lower production costs than that Japanese suppliers offer. Furthermore, compared with South Korean LED makers, Taiwanese suppliers are more competitive since most of them have opened workshops in mainland China.