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.  

Samsung has invested USD 1 billion in its LED TV promotion campaign, bringing such TVs in the limelight of the market since the 2Q09. Other major TV brand vendor also raised their LED TV shipment targets for 2010, and launched capacity expansion plans at the same time. According to the research institute LEDinside, the total capital expenditure of Taiwan’s LED chipmakers will reach NTD 13.5 billion in 2009, a 24% growth compared to last year.

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According to survey of the industry research institute LEDinside, Taiwan's listed LED manufacturers recorded total revenue of NT 6.927 billion in September 2009, a 7.2% growth from August and a 18.9% growth YoY – of which, LED chip makers’ total revenue in September gained 4.6% to NT 2.938 billion, while LED packagers posted NT 3.989 billion, 9.2% growth MoM.

Nowadays, many consumers should have noticed the intense promotion campaign launched by TV vendors for LED TVs. Major Korea brand vendors have coined the term “LED TV” to promote their LCD TV models that adopt the LED backlight technology. Some TV manufacturers in Japan, China, and Europe have also followed suit and introduced a series of LED-backlit LCD TV.

According to survey by industry research house LEDinside, LED chip industry in mainland China has been exploding in the past 10 years, with the number of LED chip makers surging from 3 in 1998 to 62 by August 2009. During this period, the year 1999 marked the beginning of the fast development of LED industry with the join of 6 new LED chip manufacturers. From 1999 to 2009, an average of 2 to 7 enterprises entered into the LED section every year.

September 11, 2009- According to survey of the industry research institute LEDinside, Taiwan's listed LED manufacturers recorded total revenue of NT 6.411 billion in August 2009, a 7.2% growth from July and a 8.3% growth YoY – of which, LED chip makers’ total revenue in August gained 5.2% to NT 2.757 billion, while LED packagers posted NT 3.654 billion, 8.7% growth MoM.

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.  

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, 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.  

With the efficiency improvement and technology advancement, the application field of LED has gradually been expanded from the backlight and signal light segments to the Lighting-Class field. To solve the problem of light and heat, the LED manufacturers have put forward their own solutions covering the chip making, packaging and even the light fixture sections by offering products of various specifications.

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

The year 2009 has been expected to be the year of the rapid expanding of LED street light market. At present, the LED street light plans have been launched in batches in many cities in China. In Taiwan, because of the increased budget in domestic demand, such plans have also been released. The U.S. and Europe have also begun to adopt LED street lights in large scales. All these are efforts to replace the traditional street lights and to use solar energy, wind force and other recyclable energy types to aid the street illumination in areas of short electricity supply.

With the global economy stepping down sharply, China is still under the pressure of keeping Economic Growth Rate no less than 8% this year, which has been indicated a tough challenge by many signs. In the end of last year, the State Council of China urgently put forward the Ten Measures to Increase the Domestic Demand and Promote Economy Growth, planning to devote a total amount of 4 trillion RMB, about 5,860 billion U.S dollars, to stimulate the economy growth, and half of the budget will be devoted into infrastructure construction.

According to survey by LEDinside, the total Feb 2009 revenue of listed Taiwan LED suppliers reached NTD 3.74billion, up 33% than Jan 2009 (YoY-25%), with the revenue of LED chip manufacturers at NTD 1.496 billion, up 46% and that of LED packaging manufacturers improved by 25% at NTD 2.243 billion comparing to January.

According to industry research institute LEDinside, the January 2009 total revenue of Taiwan upstream LED manufacturers is 2.743 billion NTD. With the lunar New Year influencing the total working days of the month, the revenue of January went on its dropping comparing with December, 2008 (MoM -15.9%，YoY -52.6%).

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.

The biggest obstacle of improving LED NB's penestration rate is the high cost of LED backlight modules. The price of LED backlight modules is still 70% higher than CCFL backlight. The reason why a LED backlight module remains highly priced is the issues of its brightness and patent. Therefore though LED NB has created a big market, not every LED maker can take advantages from it. LED VS.CCFL

Though in 2008 the penetration rate of LED NB is lower than expected, but in order to make their notebooks lighter, thinner and more energy-saving, many big branded manufacturers speed up to bring LED backlight into their NB. LEDinside projects the penetration rate of LED NB will be as high as 60.3% in 2010. The progress of LED backlight ‘s application on NB is slower than expected

The main issue LED TV faces is still high costs, therefore the manufacturer usually place LED TV at the top class of TV products. Besides, with more than 1000 LEDs being the backlight, how to maintain the equality and reliability remains a big issue.

Observing the strategies of those main LED TV manufacturers one can find that all LED TVs are made with 40-inch or larger panels. This is because the price of the U-shape CCFL for 32-inch panels is very cheap, which is half or two-third lower than the price of the LED back-light. Therefore the manufacturer is more willing to  adopt LED back-light in the big-screen TV, in this way they can aim at the top layer of consumers .

In the IFA 2008, many manufacturers introduced LED TVs to show their capability of combining LED and TV technology.SamsungFor example, Samsung introduced the A950 series, which supports Full HD(1920*1080) with screens made 46 or 55 inches, and adopts LED back light, which can control the brightness more efficiently.Sony

Why use LED backlight？A few days ago in the IFA 2008 hosted in Berlin，many of the branded TV manufacturers introduced LED-backlighted TVs(LED TV)，aimed at the top layer of customers. Some leading manufacturers such as Sony and Samsung already introduced LED TV in 2006，but with the costs of LED have decreased and the LED technology has progressed rapidly, LED TV has moved toward a real product rather than just a demonstration of technology.

Most LED companies, regardless which segment that they are coming from, records a flat 2Q08 performance amid seasonal weakness. A rapid expansion among global LED makers in 1H08 plus a weak demand that is suppressed by a relatively high price premium upon low performance, oversupply was seen, especially when the industry is in lack of a killer application to spur demand. This explains why LED makers mostly have their sales performance fail expectations in 1H08.

Applications of LED during the Beijing Olympics have raised audience's eyebrows. According to non-official statistics from China, the Beijing Olympics has consumed a total of 500mn RMB worth of LEDs at 36 stadiums, excluding other public lighting applications that are installed at the Olympics villages and parks. But as Olympics grand completed, concerns about whether there exists a fundamental demand for LED surfaces.

The use of LEDs for the backlight's light source has created new business opportunities in the maturing NB panel market. In contrast to CCFLs, white LEDs provide higher color saturation and are mercury-free and less power-consuming--making them more environmentally friendly.   

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.