Recently, mainland China and Taiwan major LED manufacturers have paid more attention on the strategy to depeen LED development.
As we know, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has announced its plans to phase out incandescent lamps within five years, including phasing out incandescent lamps starting with ≥100W by Oct. 2012, then ≥60W by Oct. 2014, and then ≥15W by Oct. 2016,seen as providing important visibility into the nation's burgeoning market for LEDs.
For Taiwan major LED manufacturers ,they are pushing their government to strengthen their leading position in LED industry due to the threathen comes from mainland China and South Korea.
According to M.S. Kung from the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, compare to mainland China , Taiwan doesn't have a large and strong end-market for LED devices -- but government funding for Taiwanese LED makers would generate "branding" and ensure steady demand from domestic contract manufacturers.
"But branding requires a strong patent portfolio to compete globally, so the government has to financially support manufacturers’ patent projects," he said, quoted by the Taiwan Economic News.
"Brain drain" to the mainland is also an issue, noted ITRI's Y.J. Chan, as China bolsters its own LED industry with Taiwanese engineering talent. Unless firms partner with rivals in China to reenergize the island's LED industry, it will lose out within two years, he said.
According to Taiwan Economic News , Many Taiwanese LED makers such as Epistar, Genesis Photonics, Arima, LiteOn, Everlight, Ledtech, Lextar, and Ligitek are making inroads into mainland China
and business has been brisk from Japan since the March 11 disaster.)
Additionally, South Korea is also a strong rival in LEDs/LED backlights, and in fact it surpassed Taiwan in 2009 to be the No.2 LED supplier, noted Y.F. Yeh of Everlight Electronic. China, South Korea, and Japan all offer LED subsidies, he noted. Taiwan needs to do more to spur adoption of LEDs; it's already replaced thousands of traffic lights and streetlights, and is planning its own phase-out for ≥25W incandescent bulbs next year.
Taiwan's LED production value is projected at NT$198B (US$6.6B) in 2011, calculates the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), though growth has slowed dramatically: 103% in 2009, 74% in 2010, and now less than 22% in 2011.
The government does expect to budget NT$330M ($11M) to finance LED lighting projects in fiscal 2012, between streetlights and indoor lighting projects.