Accoding to Taiwan major LED manufacture Epistar and Everlight , LED Lighting is likely to play a key role over the next two years.
Recently , J.Y. Fan, a vice president of Epistar, said at the SEMI Taiwan 2011, that the oversupply will compel LED makers to shift application emphasis to lighting, which is considered much more profitable as its market remains in the infant stage. Also, excessive supplies have driven down prices of LED devices, thereby reducing production costs of lighting products.
Fan’s estimate revised previous thoughts that lighting would pass backlight in 2013 as the primary LED application.
It’s said that LED application started from 2009,and LED backlight penetration in the TV market reached 18% in 2010. The figure still reflects strong market growth of the application despite the penetration estimate is revised downward to a 43% this year from a 50%. In 2012, the penetration is projected to rise to 60%.
As for Everlight, its president P.Y. Liu, pointed out that over the next two years global markets will pose huge opportunities to LED lighting, with LED lighting penetration estimated to reach 50% in Japan. He expected the penetration rate to double in Europe from current 10% in two years.
Everlight has entered LED luminarie market with two brand names. Lu said lighting operation will grow to account for 15% of the company’s revenue next year, up from 10% planned for the second half of this year and 8% registered in the first half of this year.
Lu felt that the inventories would take at least a quarter to deplete and the company’s revenue for the fourth quarter would be mostly driven up by lighting products and small-to-midsize backlights.