Reportedly, Siemens AG (SIE) is drafting plans for its lighting subsidiary Osram’s first production plant for LED in China.
Osram has given the go-ahead for the project and is negotiating which parts of LEDs and related components it will produce in the country, according to someone who declined to be named as the plans haven’t yet been finalized.
Currently, Osram only has production sites for the semiconductor-based technology in Regensburg, Germany, and Penang, Malaysia. So the facility would fill a gap for Osram in China, the world’s largest lighting market at 8 billion euros ($10.6 billion). The company said that it appointed Samuel Wu, a Chinese native who last ran Honeywell International Inc. (HON)’s process solutions business in China, to oversee operations in Asia.
So far, Osram employs about 8,000 people in China, including at an assembly plant for retrofit bulbs using LEDs in Shaoxing, China. It predicts the Chinese lighting market will more than double by 2020. And the scheduled China LED Plant may help it consolidate industry status.