Low demand in laptop and TV backlight worldwide and LED bulb price  wars led by major LED manufacturers, most Taiwanese LED manufacturers incurred revenue losses during first half of 2015.

Taiwanese LED components business , the total value of output of Taiwanese LED wafer and LED chips only reached NT$19.8 billion (US$ 607 million), reflecting 20% decline Year on Year (YoY) , according to Photonics Technology & Industry Development Association,. Meanwhile, the value of LED package output and LED module slightly declined to NT$44.9 billion. The revenue of top 10 LED chips Taiwanese manufacturers also dropped from NT$ 89 million profit to NT$ 1.1 billion loss.

PIDA also projected with the exception of Chinese manufacturers, other regions will mostly suffer 10%-20% revenue decline. In the first half of 2015, top 10Taiwanese wafer and chips manufacturers all suffered 9% decline, including Epistar, whose acquisition of FOREPI has not effectively bolstered revenue. The sales revenue dropped from a profit of NT$ 89 million to NT$ 1.13 billion loss. Meanwhile, the overall profit of LED package and LED module manufacturers dropped from NT$1.85 billion to NT$1.08 billion.

The main source of demand of LED components, namely backlight and luminaires both plummeted in 2015. Originally, it was expected that the demand of high resolution screen requires more LEDs will offset the impact of the introduction of brighter LED components. However, it turned out that the middle and large size LCD screen demand did not see any growth. To make matters worse, major LED luminaire manufacturers slashed prices of LED bulbs also forced component price to drop, though it successfully boosted market penetration rates. It’s expected that only Chinese manufacturers will be able to escape the 10%-20% decline in the global market, and maintain positive growth.

(Translator: Emma Chang, Editor, LEDinside)