According to LEDinside, the research division of Trendforce Corporation, the large-size LED backlight demand visibility is expected to extend into Q3. However, as TV sales conventionally enter the down cycle in Q1, the LED backlight orders reflect that the seasonality effect will occur in early  Q4. Therefore, whether the LED lighting in Q4 can prop up the market demand will become an important observation focus.

LEDinside offers free services for our members to post their product information on LEDeXchange, which helps open the door of internet marketing. The number of unique visitors on LEDinside has reached 1.7 million a year; among which, more than 80% of our visitors are from LED related industries, and the number is still increasing.

China’s LED chip industry has received a huge investment from 2009 to 2010. Although the output value is not yet large, there is no doubt about its great development speed and potential. According to LEDinside’s statistics, the gross output of LED chip industry in China reaches more than 2 billion RMB (~USD294 million, at USD 1: RMB 6.796) and the number of Chinese players by area is as much as 62. In light of LED chip sales in 2009, the top 10 LED chip manufacturers are ranked as follows:

Based on the industry research LEDinside’s analysis and statistics, in May this year, listed LED manufacturers in Taiwan have total revenue of 9.65 billion NTD (~USD300 million, at USD 1: NTD 32.235), a 6.8% growth compared with revenue of 9.033 billion NTD (~USD280 million, at USD 1: NTD 32.235) in April, and 85.5% in annual growth rate. The revenue for LED chip manufacturers in May amounted to 4.273 billion NTD (~USD133 million, at USD 1: NTD 32.235) , which increased 6% compared to that of April.

LEDforum China 2010, held by research institution LEDinside, debuted today. World-class speakers are invited to share professional points of view, analyze trends and challenges of the LED industry, and introduce the latest lighting technology. Over 1000 participants from the industry, government, and academia circles have all gathered at the forum.

Compared with 2009, the LED lighting market has become more and more heated. Like the gleam of the morning's first beam, the global LED lighting promotion began in 2010, especially in developed countries like Japan and Europe where demand of LED lighting products surged rapidly. LEDinside has conducted an exclusive interview with Ben Fan, President of Neo-Neon Holdings Ltd.

Focusing on the future of LED streetlight development, research institute LEDinside indicated that although streetlight standards have not been established and regulations of the product specifications are set according to different needs in different regions, LED streetlight becomes modulized, and intelligent control system of LED streetlight will be more complete. It is estimated that a total of 870,000 units of LED streetlights will be installed in 2010, an increase of 42.62% compared to 610,000 in 2009.

Governments around the world began to commit in promoting energy-saving policies, and the cost of LED lighting began to fall; these factors help to stimulate the growth of the energy-saving market. Research institute LEDinside indicated that with the ban on incandescent bulbs, business opportunities of 10W and below LED light bulbs began to emerge, and that light makers have cut prices in order to compete in the market that supplies nearly 20 billion units of incandescent bulbs per year.

According to research institute LEDinside’s statistics, the revenues of global LED packaging manufacturers reached 8.05 billion U.S. dollars, a 5% growth compared to that of 2008. Notably, buttressed by the support from Samsung Group, revenues of Samsung LED jumped to the Top 4 in the world from below Top 10 in 2008, making it the world's fastest-growing LED manufacturer.  

TV brand vendors are highly optimistic about the shipments of LED TVs in 2010, indicated research institute LEDinside. The optimism boosts demand for LEDs and rapidly increases LED supply. Therefore, under the substantial expansion of LED manufacturing capacity, end-market sales of LED TV will be the determining factor in whether the LED industry will be able to sustain its growth momentum in the second half of the year.

At LEDforum 2009, which took place on November 25, 2009, LEDinside Research Director Roger Chu proposed his viewpoint on the LED industry trend in 2010. He pointed out that high brightness LEDs, used in large-size backlights and lightings, will be the key growth driver of the LED market – with compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of large-size backlight reaching 73%, and that of lighting market up by approximately 32%.

The second day of LEDforum 2009 mainly highlights the exhaustive analysis of LED TV, automotive LED, and the global LED market reports, and probes into China’s market in depth. Dr Jun Ruan, Vice Secretary-General of China Solid State Lighting Alliance, said that the cross-Strait can develop standards mutually in the future, constructing a demonstration area of the semiconductor lighting project together.

Even though ‘LED TV’ is simply marketing buzzword, its advantages outweigh its drawbacks An increasing number of TV vendors, including Sony, Sharp Samsung, and LG, are launching their so-called "LED TV" products on the market. But in fact, LED TV is not a completely different product to LCD TV – it is, in essence, an LCD TV that adopts LED backlighting technology.

Popularity of LED TVs has driven up the demand for LED backlighting, leading to the wave of integration in Taiwan’s LED industry. And the island’s largest LED chipmaker Epistar recently said it is to purchase shares of Tekcore Co through a private placement deal. This trend of vertical and horizontal integrations seen in the industry can help keep the companies’ gross profit rate up, boost their capacities, as well as guarantee the supply to the customers, analyzed the industry research firm LEDinside.  

Recently, LED-backlit LCD monitors are more frequently showing up in the market, indicating the increasing application of LED backlight in monitor field — the slowest growing section among the three major LED backlight application fields. According to LEDinside, the specialized market research house, LED backlight penetration rate in monitors will be no more than 1% in 2H09, while is expected to rise to 35% by 2012. Vendors are promoting LED monitors; are consumers ready to buy?

According to survey of the industry research institute LEDinside, Taiwan's listed LED makers recorded total revenue of NT 5.982 billion in July 2009, a 5.8% growth from NT 5.652 billion in June 2009 and a 3.8% growth YoY. LED chip makers' total revenues in July gained 6.9% to NT 2.621 billion while LED packagers posted NT 3.361 billion, 5.1% growth MoM.  

Interview with Dr. Christian Geng, Vice President Greater China, General Manager AIXTRON Taiwan and Mr Bernd Wachtendorf, Director of Operations: Encouraged by lower sapphire substrate price, the 4 inch MOCVD equipment is expected to become mainstream next year.

According to the industry research institute LEDinside, in June 2009, Taiwan’s listed LED manufacturers recorded total revenue of NT$565.2 billion a 9.5% growth compared to NT$516 billion in May (+4.7% YoY). LED chip makers’ total revenue amounted to NT$2.453 billion, up by 13.9% MoM; and LED packagers posted NT$3.198 billion in revenue, a 6.4% growth MoM.  

According to the industry research institute LEDinside, as demand for LED TV and LED NB expands, LED chips are running short of supply during the second quarter of this year, which has resulted in a more stable price of white LED compared to that of 2008.

According to the industry research institute LEDinside, total revenue of Taiwan’s listed LED manufacturers in April, 2009 was NT$5.361 billion, growing by 9.1% (YoY -13.4%) comparing with March, 2009. The total April revenue of LED chip manufacturers was NT$2.089 billion, up by 4.4％ than a month earlier; and the revenue for LED packagers was NT$3.27 billion, growing by 12.4％comparing with March.  

LEDinside has recently interviewed Tung Guoqing, Cree Inc.’s general manager of Business Development in China, also authorized representative of Shanghai photoelectricity industry association and director of Chinese semiconductor lighting committee. Either on behalf of the lighting committee, or as Cree’s representative in China, manager Tang has shared with us the most valuable insights in the illumination industry and LED market in China.  

LEDinside has recently visited Huang Kouhsin, former president of United Epitaxy Company and current president of Excellence Opto and High Power Opto, and Huang Fang-Yue, wife of president Huang and also the general manager of Excellence Opto, to get some knowledge about the current situation and future development of Excellence Opto group.

After Taiwan’s major computer provider Acer recently heightening the proportion of LED-backlit Notebooks, Asus, another major maker in the industry, announced that it would also boost the proportion of its LED-backlit Notebooks, and estimates to use LCD panels with LED backlight in all Notebook computer products by the end of 2009, including high-end ultra-thin Notebook, middle- and low-end Notebooks.

LED TV market features infinite imagination space but is immature yet, LEDinside estimates the market penetration rate of LED TV to be 2% in 2009 and 11% in 2012

As environmental protection becomes an issue of increasing concern, energy-saving policies have been brought forward continually by Chinese government. According to LEDinside, the LED industry may benefit from the RMB 4 trillion economy stimulus funds planned to be devoted before the end of 2010. And the EXPO 2010 in Shanghai will also bring out another LED demand high tide after the Beijing Olympic Games 2008.

LEDinside, Taiwan LED industry research institute, estimates Taiwan’s streetlight market to show perspective business valued at around NT$40-50 billion for the Taiwan’s LED firms due to the government’s plan to spend NT$200-300 million to install LED streetlights on some of the island’s roads in 2009 as demonstration for the use of the new light source in streetlight.

Although the advantage of using LED light bulbs is “Saving Energy”; its current market price and energy-saving effect still cannot compete with the compact fluorescent lamp’s. Yet, if the luminous efficiency of LED light bulbs can reach 80 lumens and its price can decrease by 40%, the cost of LED light bulb can catch up with that of the compact fluorescent lamp. In terms of the current production process of LED manufacturers, the demand of LED light bulbs will probably dramatically increase by 2010.

To analyze it by the approach of cost variancesIn order to investigate how much energy will be saved by using compact fluorescent lamps and LED light bulbs, “LEDinside” has conducted a survey on the prices and specifications of compact fluorescent lamps and LED light bulbs. Some incandescent lamps have also been used for in-depth comparison. The comparable standards include “luminous efficiency”, “ power cost”, “lamp cost”, and the “total cost”.

In order to reduce the greenhouse gas and cope with the problems rising from high oil prices and high energy consumption, many countries have announced new regulations in relation to using the high efficiency and cost saving light sources in replacement of incandescent lamps. Hopefully, attain the goal of saving energy and reducing the emission of CO2.