Taiwan’s leading LED chip maker announced it would be slashing around 60 jobs this week, but market rumors estimate the number of layoffs are much higher. Easing backlight market demands, and challenges following the absorption of FOREPI has placed Epistar in a particularly challenging market position.

The year of 2015 will be the turning point for color television technology, said Houjian Zhou, chairman of Hisense Technology on Sep. 15, 2015 at a press conference. According to Zhou, electrical technology has its own life cycle and LED industry growth has slowed down. The position and strategy of LED manufacturers today will determine their market position and development five years later. Mainstream Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) technology has evolved for more than 50 years, but did not see any real technology breakthroughs until 2000. Although, liquid crystal display technology became an absolute mainstream display solution, it has seen few innovations within the past two years, which led to price cuts and low profits. Meanwhile, manufacturers have developed OLED display technology for TVs for more than 10 years, yet OLED remains an unmarketable mainstream display technology.

Leading LED chip manufacturer Epistar’s has raised the number of job cuts from the previously announced 65 to about 180, reported UDN.

Taiwanese LED manufacturers revenue performance continued to wane in August, according to Pingan Securities. Revenue performances downed both annually and on a monthly basis, according to statistics released by Taiwanese companies.

Demand for lighting equipment, as measured by NEMA’s Lighting Systems Shipments Index, increased by 2.2% year-over-year (y/y) and by 0.4% quarter-to-quarter during second quarter of 2015. The increase was driven by emergency lighting and fixtures which gained ground on a year-over-year basis while the ballast and lamp–large and miniature–components offset these gains with year-over-year declines.

Two local companies team up to revamp a mobile forensic laboratory. LumaStream designs and manufactures low-voltage LED lighting systems. The National Forensic Science Technology Center (NFSTC) creates deployable forensic laboratories from standard ISO shipping containers. Together, they have redesigned NFSTC's mobile laboratory to include the latest in lighting technology.

Indonesia is situated in Southeast Asia and is located on the Equator. It is close to Papua New Guinea, East Timor and borders Malaysia. Geolocation wise the world’s largest archipelago is also an ocean across from Thailand, Singapore, Philippines and Australia. With a population of 240 million people scattered across 18,307 islands, Indonesia is the fourth most populated country in the world following China, India, and U.S. Annual economic growth rates peaked to 6.3% over the past few years indicating it is a country that holds great market potential.

A few weeks ago, Hollywood actress Jessica Alba created a buzz on the Internet with her anti-age LED skin care treatment. Turns out LEDs market potential in the beauty sector extends to weight loss, and for those aiming to stay thin and slim.

Jules Verne said in Around the World in 80 Days: “Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real.” Today, that is truer than ever before. Did you ever think it would be possible to communicate so easily with anyone around the world? Surely not. With what we already know about technology and with what we can imagine, there are limitless possibilities for smart cities and for the marketplace of tomorrow. And while the ideas may seem like a sci-fi fantasy now, the current rate of progress means we’re already on the brink of a totally unexpected future.

The new Chevrolet Camaro is being unveiled for the first time in Europe at the International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. HELLA is providing a new kind of interior light concept for the iconic performance car, giving the interior a distinctive design. The color changes slowly throughout the vehicle in a subtle, flowing pattern from the center screen.

- Two new powertrains, including first Honda turbo engine in U.S.   - Available Honda Sensing™ technologies   - Compatible with Apple CarPlay®, the smarter, simpler way to use your iPhone in the car   - Also supports Android Auto™   - New styling includes significant use of LED lighting   - New platform and package yields largest cabin in compact class

OPPLE Lighting, a leading lighting manufacturer based in Shanghai, China, recently launched a branding campaign extending point of sales with aggressive promotion in Bangkok, Thailand, with an aim to enhance the brand awareness, help the terminal stores improve their images and boost sales, and introduce OPPLE LED products to the consumers.

Acuity Brands  announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Acuity Brands Lighting, completed the previously announced acquisition of Distech Controls Inc., a leading provider of building automation and energy management solutions that allow for the seamless integration of lighting, HVAC, access control, closed circuit television, and related systems.  Acuity Brands Lighting acquired all of the outstanding capital stock of Distech Controls for approximately 318 million Canadian dollars. 

 Ephesus Lighting, the leader in developing digital lighting solutions for sports arenas, stadiums and fields of all sizes has been selected to create an LED arena lighting solution for Bridgestone Arena, home of the National Hockey League's Nashville Predators and the host site for the 2016 NHL All-Star Game.

With growing worldwide demand for innovative lighting products, Osram established a second LED plant in Kunshan, China on Sep. 10 to further expand its production capacity in the district. The new LED plant will hire 500 employees in Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province, mainly to manufacture automotive lighting and display lighting products.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP will show for the first time organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) on graphene at Plastic Electronics 2015 (6th − 8th of October 2015, fair area Dresden, booth 1549, joint booth of OES – Organic Electronic Saxony). These OLEDs are an interim result from the project GLADIATOR funded by the European Commission.

Taiwan’s LED industry was affected by China’s supply chain, even top LED chip manufacturer Epistar has announced plans of slashing jobs as part of its restructure process, reported UDN recently.

The international lighting corporation Zumtobel Group has acquired as of today a majority holding in UK lighting company AC/DC LED Holdings Ltd (acdc). The company based in Barrowford, north of Manchester, is an innovative supplier of high-end LED lighting solutions with a focus on the architectural façade and hospitality segments. acdc started off its business with high brightness LED luminaires in 2001. 

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) in UK has sent a notice recently asking boat and vessel owners to refrain from using white LED retrofits in traditional tungsten filament tricolor navigational lights.

The Indian government intends to slash LED bulb retail prices from the average retail price of INR 300 (US $4.52) to INR 44 (US$ 0.66) under its DELP scheme, reported Times of India.

On Sep. 10, MLS announced that the company will spend RMB$ 180 million (US$ 278.2 million) to purchase stock in Kaistar Lighting with private fund, acquiring 10.91% of Kaistar’s shares.

In general, LED Manufacturers performed quite well over the past eight months in 2015. But competition among LED manufacturers intensified through price wars, patent disputes and fighting over distribution channel were overwhelming. A summary of recent lawsuits among these manufacturers as following:

Osram announced it will sell its stake in Foshan Lighting (Felco) as part of its company restructure process. LEDinside analysts believe the company is trying to raise its lighting business value by selling the businesses separately. In an exclusive interview with LEDinside, Rahul Bammi, Vice President of Marketing and Product Management at Lumileds and David Cosenza, the company’s Product Manager for the LUXEON Color LED Family spoke about how they are positioning their newly launched LUXEON Color C products at the entertainment and architectural lighting businesses. Seoul Viosys and SETi’s UV LEDs are being used by NASA for sterilization aboard the International Space station (ISS). Taiwanese LED manufacturers revenue performance down 20% during first half of 2015.

The specs on iPhone 6s were not far off from early predictions in the industry, such as Apple will be redesigning the phone to meet selfie enthusiasts’ demands, reported Chinese-language media TechNews.

Sapphire screens were missing on Apple’s latest smartphone again. Apple fans waited in eager anticipation in front of their computer monitors during the twilight hours of Sept. 10, Beijing time, just to catch a glimpse of the new products at the annual fall product launch event.

The lens of the bulb can shatter in the lamp or the lens fall off and shatter, posing a laceration and burn hazard.

VolkerHighways has been awarded a GBP 21 million (US $32.42 million) contact to maintain nearly 41,000 streetlights in Bournemouth and Poole over the next 10 years.

Heliospectra, a world leader in intelligent lighting technology for plant research and greenhouse cultivation, has had its European patent application approved by the European Patent Office. This marks the seventh region to approve the Company’s core patent, as Europe joins the U.S., Russia, China, Canada, Japan, and Hong Kong.

World leading UV LED solution company, Seoul Viosys(CEO Jaejo Kim, www.seoulvisys.com) and leading U.S. based short-wavelength UV LED pioneer and manufacturer Sensor Electronics Technology Inc (CEO Emmanuel Lakios, www.s-et.com) signed an agreement for joint-commercialize and expand related sales of the Violeds technology which was reported used by NASA aboard the International Space Station.

Osram announced Wednesday it would be selling its 13.5% stake in Foshan Electrical and Lighting (Foshan Lighting) to a subsidiary of Guangdong Rising Assets Management (GRAM) for more than EUR 350 million (US $392.51 million).