As CES 2014 in Las Vegas catches industry attention this week, manufacturers have been releasing new exciting products at the show. Belkin has expanded its smart lighting WeMo product portfolio, while Razer has come up with a fashionable smart wearable OLED device. Top Taiwanese LED manufacturers including Epistar, Everlight, Unity Opto, Edison Opto and others have released their latest financial reports this week. After much toiling, LEDinside finally presents its comprehensive overview for 2013, while analysts present their latest projections for the Chinese LED chip industry. For more please see below:

Global market research firm TrendForce's Green Energy Division LEDinside said that, in 2013 the LED chips total revenues of mainland Chinese companies(which mainly based on mainland investment, similarly hereinafter) reached 992 M USD, with a year-on-year growth of 17%, and is expected to reach 1182 M USD in 2014. According to LEDinside analyst Allen Yu, in 2013, being influenced by the rapidly enhanced penetration of LED commercial lighting, chip capacity utilization has largely improved, however due to continuous decline in chip price, the growth rate o...

In 1879, the incandescent light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison, according to a report by a South Daily Media Group subsidy. Yet, 135 years later today, incandescent bulbs will officially become history in the U.S. Starting from Jan. 1, 2014, the U.S. will ban sales of its best selling 40W and 60W incandescent bulbs. Other countries including South Korea, Thailand, and Philippines are also following suit in launching policies that adopt energy efficient lighting. 

The LED industry is entering a rapid growth phase in the lighting sector in 2014. Global LED bulb shipment volumes doubled from 520 million in 2013 to 1.1 billion in 2014. Tube lighting also increased with 2013 shipment volumes rising from 230 million to 400 million in 2014, according to data revealed by Epistar during the East Asia Pacific Standards and Spec Development Conference. LED chip design still maintains a 6-12 month transition period while LED package technology undergoes changes every 1-2 years.

Changfang Lighting announced on Thursday, stockholder Lin Changchun, who has a 5 percent stake in the company, has sold out 2.85 million stocks during Jan. 7-8, 2013 in the ShenZhen Stock Exchange (SZSE). The stocks sold account for around 1.05 percent of the company’s share capital.

Taiwanese LED package manufacturer Everlight released their December consolidated revenue which reached NT $2.26 billion (US $75.2 million), a slight growth from November revenue of NT $2.259 billion) and yearly growth of 36.75 percent. Revenue for all of 4Q13 was NT $6.76 billion, a quarterly dip of 3.28 percent but yearly growth of 33.46 percent. Although typically a slack season, 4Q13 showed unusually good performance. Revenue for the entire year was NT $24.7 billion, yearly growth of 29.58 percent.

LED lighting application is gradually maturing. In order to continue lowering costs for LED lighting products, there is a growing trend of manufacturers adopting High Voltage (HV) LEDs to simplify the power supply design. A large chunk of commercial and street lighting already uses HV LED components, according to Epistar. The company views is very optimistic of future  HV LEDs development in the lighting market. In the company’s product portfolio, mid voltage and high voltage LED chips makes up 10 percent of the company’s lighting products.

At the 2014 International CES, NXP Semiconductors (NASDAQ: NXPI) is demonstrating a wireless smart lighting network designed for ease of installation in the home. The demo includes an energy harvesting switch (battery-less, no wires) developed by EnOcean, a world leader in energy harvesting wireless solutions. The switch uses the NXP JN5161 wireless microcontroller and implements the ZigBee® Green Power feature.

Phoseon Technology continues its expansion in the Asia Pacific region by participating at the upcoming Industrial Digital Showcase Asia (IMI) in Hong Kong. Phoseon plans to feature the latest UV LED curing systems on the market to help support new and existing customers in Asia. 

The rejuvenation of the LED market is unsurprisingly a hot topic in the investment market recently. Foreign investor’s interest in LED companies is gradually growing. In a recent report, Credit Suisse gave their outlook for Taiwanese LED chip manufacturer Epistar. The financial firm believes that is in a good position to ride on the general lighting demand growth and outgrow the market in the TV backlighting space due to their advantages in technologies and scale. However, the company will still be affected by seasonal factors with the upcoming Lunar New Year. The company’s 1Q14 revenues are expected to have a 10 percent QoQ decline.

LiteOn released their December revenue yesterday, announcing that it had reached NT$ 20.18 billion (US $670 million), a monthly and yearly increase of 3 percent and 16 percent respectively making it the highest single month for 2013. Increase of end market demands spurred continual growth for core technologies, said LiteOn. Consolidated revenue for 4Q13 was NT$ 59.23 billion, showing unusually good performance for a slack season with quarterly and yearly growth of 4 percent and 12 percent respectively, the highest single quarter revenue in two and a half years. Revenue for all of 2013 reached NT$ 212.8 billion.

NEMA’s shipment indexes for T5, T8 and T12 lamps retreated during 2013Q3, decreasing by 7.3, 9.4 and 5.5 percent, respectively. Year-over-year (y/y) performance showed mixed results for the different lamp types. The T5 lamp index increased by 5.7 percent compared to 2012Q2. T8 lamp shipments improved as well increasing by 10.7 percent. Shipments of T12 lamps continued to decline, registering a decline of 6.3 percent (y/y).

AIXTRON SE, a supplier of deposition systems to the semiconductor industry, and Manz AG, a Reutlingen-based specialist engineering company, have agreed on a strategic cooperation. Both partners will be working on further developing solutions for use in efficient organic light-emitting diode (OLEDs) production, aiming to jointly exploit the opportunities offered by the future market for OLED technologies.

QD Vision and ShineOn Holding announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) a new partnership to provide integrated LED and Color IQ™ optical components that optimize total system performance in TV and monitor designs. This collaboration further facilitates the integration of QD Vision’s Color IQ optical components into customers’ existing LCD supply chains and makes the transition to full-gamut color even easier for the LCD manufacturer. The collaboration significantly reduces engineering design and color-tuning timelines, enabling rapid development of full-gamut displays.

CRS Electronics Inc., a developer and manufacturer of LED lighting products, announced the opening of 2 new offices in China.

Razer, the world leader in devices and software for its globally connected community of gamers, announces the launch of the world’s smartest wristband, the Razer Nabu.

New InstantFit LED T8 from Philips Slashes Conversion Cost and time to replace Fluorescent Tubes with LED technology. LED tubes save over 40 percent in lighting related energy costs- combined with their long lifetime, facility managers can recover their investment in just one to three years.Installers will replace fluorescent tubes within seconds. Philips' InstantFit LED T8 is compatible with most fluorescent fixtures using electronic instant start ballasts, without re-wiring. 

CRAIC Technologies, a leading innovator of UV-visible-NIR microanalysis solutions, is proud to introduce CRAIC TimePro™ kinetic spectroscopy software. This software package is designed to be used with CRAIC Technology’s microspectrophotometers and their controlling Lambdafire™ software. CRAIC TimePro™ allows the user to monitor changes in the spectra over time. The most unique feature is that this software will allow users to measure the time dependant changes in full UV-visible-NIR range reflectance, absorbance and even emission spectra of microscopic samples.

Taiwanese LED package manufacturer Edison Opto consolidated revenue for Dec. 2013 reached NT$ 209 million (US$ 6.95 million), a decrease of 2.09 percent compared to last month. However, the company’s Dec. 2013 revenue has soared 50.1 percent compared to the same period last year. Affected by the traditionally low season in 4Q13, consolidated revenue reached NT$ 641 million, despite a quarterly decrease of 22.54%, consolidated revenue increased 38.54 percent. The company’s consolidated revenue in 2013 reached NT$ 2.74 billion, a YoY increase of 20.91%.

In 2013 LED lighting market value was only half of backlight market, but with rising demands LED lighting market value is expected to be the same as backlight in 2014, said FOREPI Chairman Chien Fen-ren during Asia Pacific LED Lighting Standard and Specification Development Seminar on Jan. 8, 2014. Chien went on noting by 2015 LED lighting market value will be double of the backlight market.

Taiwanese LED chip manufacturer Epistar delivered a stellar performance during the traditional LED low season. The company announced its Dec. 2013 revenue reached NT$ 2.04 billion (US$ 70 million) marking a historical high for the last 10 quarters since 3Q11. Although, December revenues dropped 1.36 percent compared to the previous month, revenues soared 61.46 percent from Dec. 2013. In addition, consolidated revenue for 4Q13 increased 6.09 percent QoQ to NT$ 6.10 billion, or an annual increase of 37.28 percent. 

Taiwanese package manufacturer Unity Opto consolidated revenue for December was NT $455 million (US $15.1 million), a drop of 14.13 percent from November. Total revenue for 2013 reached NT $69.2 billion, a dip of 8.39 percent from 2012. Slack season and client stocktaking at the end of the year impacted December shipments. LED bulb order volumes doubled at the end of the year, due to new clients preordering mobile applications starting in 4Q13 and favoritism from European and U.S. markets.

Taiwanese LED package manufacturer Ledtech consolidated revenue forDecember  reached NT $170 million (US $5.6 million), a monthly increase of 39.72 percent and YoY growth of 25.74 percent. Growth was from client orders for low temperature lighting being deferred to December as well as from client Lunar New Year preorders. The company’s total revenue for last year was NT$ 1.67 billion, a yearly growth of 4.81 percent. 

The Board of Directors of the European Alliance to Save Energy (EU-ASE) at its meeting on Dec. 3, 2013 appointed Harry Verhaar, Head of Global Public & Government Affairs at Philips, as the new chairman of the Board.

Rubicon Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: RBCN), a leading provider of sapphire substrates and products to the LED, semiconductor and optical markets, today announced the sale of US$ 28.2 million of its common stock pursuant to an underwriting agreement with Canaccord Genuity Inc. The last reported sale price of Rubicon’s common stock as reported by the NASDAQ Global Market on January 7, 2014 was US$ 11.44 per share.

Philips Lighting blogger Monique Cousineau visits Canadian city Montreal’s high-tech public art exhibitions. For details please see the full blog entry below: Montreal does it again. The city has found the best antidote to long, dark and grey winters. It’s the fourth annual “Luminothérapie”, a design competition that promotes new ways of using public spaces as open-air galleries. This year’s winning project Entre les rangs is one of two installations chosen from among 44 submissions.

Continuing to evolve the WeMo platform of simple, ingenious connected home products, Belkin announced a slate of new WeMo devices including the WeMo LED Lighting Starter Set and WeMo Smart LED Bulbs. Also on tap for the WeMo line at CES is a revised Android and iOS app offering improved functionality and enhanced lighting features. 

Radiant Zemax announces the release of the ProMetric I2, the newest member of its ProMetric I family of imaging colorimeters. Designed to meet the speed and throughput requirements of high-volume production lines, the ProMetric I2 incorporates ProMetric I’s industry-leading technology in a 2MP, 1600 x 1200 pixel model, making it well suited to applications such as color and luminance uniformity testing in flat panel displays (FPDs), light measurement and characterization of LED products.

At the end of 2013, a new list of bankrupt Chinese LED lighting manufacturers was published. Industry sources estimate more than 10,000 people have been impacted by the bankruptcy wave. Frustrated workers and angry investors have hunt down these indebted bosses on their own, provide legal evidence on outstanding accounts receivable and form groups to ask related organizations for help. These people will be unable to enjoy their reunion dinner during the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year this month.

Vertically integrated Taiwanese LED manufacturer Lextar December revenue reached NT $1.1 billion (US $36.6 million), a decline of 5.8 percent from November but growth of 51.9 percent compared with December 2012. Revenue for 4Q13 was NT $3.32 billion, an increase of 40.9 compared to the same period in 2012. Revenue for 2013 as a whole was NT $13.7 billion, growth of 36.57 percent from NT $10.1 billion in 2012.