The joint venture co-funded by Epistar of LED leader Ennostar and LED display supplier Leyard is currently experiencing a short supply of production capacity owing to the vigorous demand for Micro LED, and has scheduled its orders to June. The joint venture will be initiating the production expansion 7 months earlier, and is expected to arrive at a monthly capacity of 800 million (800kk) units prior to the end of May, which will also benefit Ennostar.

Epistar and Leyard announced on the joint venture in March last year, where the two had joined hands on the arrangement of the Micro LED technology, and established the first mass production base for Micro LED in the world in Wuxi, with each party acquiring approximately half of the shareholding. The production base began operation in October last year, and is expected to manufacture at full capacity in 2022.

Taking into account factors such as the pandemic and new products, the joint venture has yet to release too much capacity during the preliminary phase of the operation. However, the drastic surge of orders derived from the robust demand for Micro LED had forced the joint venture to work overtime during the Chinese New Year holiday, with orders now scheduled to June under shortages of production capacity.

Photo source: Paixin licensed gallery

Hence, Leyard and Epistar have decided to move up the schedule of production expansion to before the end of May this year after discussion that will achieve a monthly capacity of 800 million units.

Apart from targeting Micro LED and Mini LED backlight products, the joint venture has also set its eyes on Micro LED self-emitting displays, with current focus placed on the particular product, and is delivering a small batch of samples for backlight products. The joint venture is prioritized on the high-end market, with application fields including central control rooms of businesses, control rooms of government agencies, conference centers, flagship stores of brands, and tenders.

The joint venture had a loss of roughly NT$32.79 million last year, which can be replenished if a revenue scale of RMB 1 billion is achieved for the entire 2021 alongside the booming client demand and the gradually elevating production capacity. A revenue of RMB 5 billion can be expected within the next 5 years under the utilization of a full production capacity.