Manufacturers, who hope to leave the fiercely competitive Chinese lighting market and other mature lighting markets, are turning their attention to emerging Southeast Asian markets or even Russia, said Roger Chu, Research Director of LEDinside at LEDforum 2014 which took place in Taipei, Taiwan last month.

After releasing Pad Extension Chip (PEC) in 2013, LED chip manufacturer Epistar, has improved the technical and support system for the product, and now the product is applied in direct-type LED TV backlight, lighting and flash lights. Epistar’s PEC chips will be applied in large volumes in direct-type LED TV next year, with target products being 32 inch to 45 inch LED TVs. The company’s orders are mainly from China and South Korea, said Epistar Deputy Director of Marketing Center, Dr. Chiu-Lin Yao while attending LEDforum 2014 held in Taipei, Taiwan on Oct. 24, 2014.

Philips decision to spin-off Philips Lumileds, automotive lighting and later lighting business in mid-2014 was mainly caused by emergence of Chinese LED manufacturers, and rapid market changes, said Roger Chu, Research Director of LEDinside at LEDforum 2014 held in Taipei, Taiwan on Oct. 24, 2014.

The supervisory board of OSRAM Licht has appointed Olaf Berlien as new chief executive officer (CEO). Berlien, 52, will take over his new function in January 2015. At the same time, Wolfgang Dehen will leave the company at his own request and by amicable agreement.

Philips Lumileds and Philips automotive lighting business will be rebranded under a new company name in 2015, said Sean Zhou, Regional Marketing Director, Asia, Philips Lumileds at LEDforum 2014, which took place on Friday in Taipei, Taiwan.

Osram has achieved its recently updated outlook for the fiscal year that ended in September 2014. Revenue rose one percent year over year on a comparable basis – meaning excluding portfolio and currency effects – and was more than €5.1 billion. The revenue share of LED-based products and solutions increased to 36 percent from 29 percent in fiscal 2013. In the fourth quarter, it reached already 39 percent. EBITA [1] excluding special items increased almost ten percent to EUR 449 million (US $) in fiscal 2014, translating into an EBITA margin of 8.7 percent, in particular due to positive effects from the OSRAM Push transformation program. 

The AllSeen Alliance, a cross-industry collaboration to advance the Internet of Everything through an open source software project, today announced that nine new companies have joined the initiative -- dog hunter, FengLian, ForgeRock®, INSTEON, MobilityLab, NETGEAR, Organic Response, Quanta Computer and VeriSign, Inc. With the addition of these new members the Alliance totals 80 companies and 12 sponsored members.

Hi-Q-LED”, a publicly funded project coordinated by Osram Opto Semiconductors, has developed LEDs with an extremely high efficacy and a reduced drop in efficacy

German's Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)-funded joint project R2D2 will start in November 2014 aiming at the investigation of production-related processes and technologies for the manufacturing of flexible OLED.

Hubbell Lighting, a world leader in lighting innovation, announced today that Hubbell Building Automation (HBA) has become a Member of The Connected Lighting Alliance. The lighting world is on the eve of a paradigm shift towards wireless connectivity, and HBA’s industry-leading products offer the simplest and most convenient form of new lighting control.

Aluwave established a production site for its customized LED modules in China through a new company, Qingdao Aluwave Lighting Technology. The decision is based on the fact that several existing multinational customers with global operations have sought local deliveries to their assembly sites in China.

Apple and GT Advanced Technology (GTAT) settlement was unaffected by the publication of documents previously considered confidential, according to a Bloomberg report.

Many smart LED applications have emerged in recent years, and the latest addition BeOn, which integrates smart lighting with home security is making the rounds on the Internet.

Royal Philips and Schréder S.A. announced that they have signed a settlement agreement which ends the pending litigation in the LED lighting field.

 Quantum Materials Corp (OTCQB:QTMM) today announced it has signed an agreement with STAR Park that will quadruple the Company's Quantum Dot production space when the new state-of-the-art lab and offices are completed on or before June 2015. The Company is also recruiting to double its scientific staff effective January 2015.

Belkin International®, a leading Internet of Things company, and Technical Consumer Products, Inc. (TCP), a leader in energy-efficient lighting innovations, today announced a relationship that will include WeMo® home automation support to the TCP lineup of LED lighting solutions. TCP and Belkin have come together to provide TCP light bulbs for home wireless networks where select retailers specify the Belkin WeMo ecosystem of home automation products.

Smart lighting emerged in recent years as a promising technology that has attracted investments from many institutes and LED companies, but further R&D is required before the technology can become truly human centric, said Pei-Ting Chou, Manager, Electronics and Optoelectronics Research Laboratories, ITRI, at LEDforum 2014, which was held on Oct. 24, 2014 in Taipei, Taiwan.

Increasing workforce wages and commercial real estate rental fees in main cities of China has led to the emergence of e-commerce, which has the upside of saving about 60% of operating cost. The importance o the E-commerce trend in China can no longer be ignored. In 2013, online shopping accounted to approximately US $300 billion of e-commerce market in China, and is estimated to reach US $445 billion this year. China’s lighting e-commerce business models are gradually shifting from Customer-to-Customer (C2C) to Business-to-Customer (B2C), according to Analyst Figo Wang of EnergyTrend, a division of global market intelligence firm Trendforce, while attending LEDforum 2014 held in Taipei, Taiwan, on Oct. 24 2014.

Improvements in lighting technology for light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs have increased lighting efficiency, or efficacy, as well as color quality. In September of this year, several manufacturers released ENERGY STAR®-qualified bulbs surpassing 100 lumens per watt. For comparison, traditional incandescent bulbs, which do not meet current light bulb efficiency standards and are no longer sold, provide 13 to 18 lumens per watt.

Governors and lawmakers in state capitals across the nation continue to take major steps to lower energy costs, reduce pollution, and save consumers money by increasing their states’ energy efficiency, according to the findings of the 8th edition of the State Energy Efficiency Scorecard released today by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

Orion Energy Systems, a leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance, energy-efficient lighting platforms, today announced financial results for its fiscal 2015 second quarter and first half ended September 30, 2014.

SYLVANIA Automotive Lighting ushers in a new era of vehicle lighting with the expansion of the SYLVANIA ZEVOTM Automotive LED Lighting line. SYLVANIA ZEVO products offer the customized style and signature look of LED technology on luxury vehicles to the aftermarket.

Intematix Corporation, a leading manufacturer of phosphor solutions for LED lighting, today announced Jerry Turin as the Company’s Chief Financial Officer.  Most recently,Turin served as Chief Financial officer of Oclaro, which scaled to a peak of $600M revenue run-rate from $250M during his tenure.  Turin will direct the Company’s financial strategy and finance team.

The age of LED lighting is here. LED lighting has overtaken the lighting industry in recent years, and become a beacon of hope for the lighting industry. This is the result of collaborated efforts from the top to downstream manufacturer, the industry supply chain, and now it’s the time to embrace the “golden age” of LED lighting, said Chinese LED packaging manufacturer MLS General Manager Ji-Liang Lin while attending LEDforum 2014 held in Taipei, Taiwan on Oct. 24, 2014.

The market for connected LED or “smart” light bulbs is in its embryonic stage of development, with shipments totaling fewer than 2.5 million units in 2013. However, falling LED prices and the endorsement of ZigBee Light Link as the preferred connectivity solution by a number of leading lighting manufacturers means that annual smart bulb shipments are set to increase to 223 million by 2020, achieving a total installed base of over 400 million. 

Philips has released a 14W LED light bulb that provides a similar light output to the most popular highest wattage Philips incandescent bulbs, in a move that’s expected to further drive LED penetration in New Zealand.

Samsung has finally officially announced its intent of ending its international LED luminaire business. Its luminaire operations will only be running in domestic markets from now on. San’an Opto has also become an Epistar shareholder this week, but with a mere 3% stake in the company it can’t even acquire a seat at the board. Cree has launched a new plastic LED bulbs without heat sinks priced at between US $7-9. For more please see below:

Cost effective communication solutions are important for long range smart streetlight applications to make it acceptable to potential clients, said Gary Tsai, R&D Director, Institute for Information Industry (III) at LEDforum 2014 last Friday at Taipei, Taiwan.

Main players behind OLED TV, Samsung and LG might be giving up the costly technology in favor of more cost affordable quantum dot technology, according to a Reuters report.

“The successful execution of our Accelerate! program continues to improve operational performance in most of our businesses. We are very excited by the vast opportunities in the HealthTech and Lighting solutions markets that we will capitalize on with the creation of two dedicated market-leading companies.