The latest research by LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, sees a significant growth for the infrared (IR) LED market in the near future. LEDinside’s 2Q15 Gold Member Report - 2015 Global LED Supply and Demand Market provides a clear outline on the IR LED’s wide range of applications, such as imaging sensors, motion sensors, light sensors, proximity sensors, position detection systems, biometric recognition systems, and heart rate and blood oxygen monitors.

LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, projects the infrared (IR) LED market value for surveillance application during 2014 reached US$94 million in its latest 2Q15 Gold Member Report - 2015 Global LED Supply and Demand Market. This recently released analysis also estimates IR LED market scale in surveillance application will furthermore come to US$120 million for 2015. 

The scale of the global market for commercial LED lighting continues to grow with the development outlook for light tubes and troffer/panel lights very positive, says LEDinside, a division of TrendForce. The latest analysis by LEDinside in its Silver Member Report: Commercial Lighting Sector’s Light Tubes and Integrated Luminaires estimates that the scale of the global market for all LED lighting products will reach US$25.65 billion in 2015. And within this market, the light tube and troffer/panel lights will make up US$3.44 billion and US$450 million respectively. Both categories are currently seeing stable market growth. 

Global 40W replacement LED bulbs Average Sales Price (ASP) dropped 1.0% in April 2015 to US $11.8, according to LEDinside’s latest LED bulb retail price survey.

LED package prices continued to fall in the second quarter, according to the latest price report from LEDinside, a division of TrendForce. Compared with the prior quarter, the average LED price for lighting application products has fallen by 1~9%, excluding the package 2835 LEDs. Since the 2835 LED products are mainstream products in China’s lighting market, their average price decline has reached 10~17%, more severe than products of other package types. For backlight LED package products, average prices dropped by 3~6% during the second quarter. Price competition in the direct-type LED backlight market remains fiercest this year compared to other LED packages market.

Osram Licht (Osram) has recently announced that it is proceeding with the next phase of its corporate reorganization, sending a shockwave across the LED industry. The announcement from Germany-based lighting giant follows Dutch electronics company Royal Philips’ sale of its automotive lighting and LED components business. The underperforming divisions that Osram will let go are Classic Lamps & Ballast (CLB unit) and LED Lamps & Systems (LLS unit). They account for 40% of the company’s total revenue. The divisions that Osram deems valuable and will hold on to are Opto Semiconductor (OS unit), Specialty Lighting (SP unit), and Luminaires & Solution (LS unit).

Intense market competition from Chinese manufacturers has driven down profits for LED manufacturers, cost efficient technologies and getting the most out of cost/performance ratios has driven LED chip technologies to ever new economic developments.

MAZeT GmbH presented new customer projects and examples of complex embedded-computing modules at the booth shared with PHOENIX CONTACT at the ‘embedded world’ trade fair in Nuremberg, Germany, from 24 to 26 February 2015. Other products demonstrated included innovative sensor solutions for controlling LEDs. This kind of control is required when the LED light source is an application comprising multiple LEDs. Despite the natural LED drift (temperature, aging), the application is required to constantly generate a specific mixed color or color temperature during the entire lifecycle or in a specific scenario.

On March 31, a consortium of investors led by GO Scale Capital announced they have bought LED manufacturer Philips Lumileds from its parent company Royal Philips. Under this agreement, GO Scale Capital will pay Royal Philips US$3.3 billion for an 80.1% stake in its automotive lighting and LED components business, and the remaining 19.9% stays under Royal Philips. The transaction is scheduled to wrap up in the third quarter of 2015, pending regulatory approval and ratification of transaction terms. Following the deal, the LED and automotive business will operate under the name “Lumileds”. 

Over the past year, the LED industry had pondered about the company that would eventually take over Philips lighting component (Philips Lumileds) and automotive business. Go Scale Capital's acquisiton of Lumileds just might be the solution to Chinese manufacturers lack of LED patents, said LEDinside analysts.

LED lighting developed rapidly in Southeast Asia thanks to its infrastructure construction, which was promoted by the development and impact from the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), according to LEDinside, a research subsidiary of global research institute TrendForce. ASEAN is an inter-governmental international organization gathering countries in Southeast Asia. Established in 1967, ASEAN covers a population of approximately 618 million people, covering a land area of 4.48 million km², with abundant natural resources, and it is one of the world's fastest growing economic regions.

LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, reports that industrial lighting has a decisive weight in the entire lighting market. LEDinside has released its latest “1Q15 Silver Member Market Report - Industrial Lighting and High Bay Markets”, which shows an intense level of price competition in the market for LED replacement lighting products, including LED light bulbs and light tubes sold in retail stores. More and more LED lighting vendors hope to capitalize on the situation by entering the industrial lighting sector. Based on LEDinside’s forecast, LED industrial lighting market scale will be worth US$2.366 billion in 2015 and by 2018 the scale will reach US$3.935 billion. 

LED lighting markets in Europe, the US, and Japan have gradually matured, and China is also entering a period of intense competitions over pricing and scale. With the formation of the ASEAN Economic Community, LED vendors’ attention on the emerging markets in Southeast Asia has grown over the years. According to a recent estimation made by LEDinside, a division of Trendforce, the lighting markets of the six major Southeast Asian countries – Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Philippines – had a combined value of US$4.5 billion in 2014. Out of that amount, around US$1.1 billion came from the LED lighting market. The growing infrastructure needs within the countries of Southeast Asia are expected to bring great demands for LED lighting as well. 

At the long-awaited “Spring Forward” media event hosted by Apple on March 9, all eyes will be on the reveal of the Apple Watch, which will have a watch cover made of sapphire glass. By incorporating this material into its newest products, Apple has provided an unprecedented, game-changing opportunity for China’s sapphire industry. LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, anticipates sapphire market demand will multiply once these smart watches hit the market. LEDinside’s Senior Analyst Figo Wang further stated the sapphire manufacturing will likely become a globally competitive section of China’s materials industry. 

LEDinside editoral team will be away during the Chinese Lunar New Year vacation starting from Feb. 17-23, and will not be updating the website during this period.

After Apple abandoned using sapphire protective glass covers in the iPhone 6 last year, sapphire substrates have been viewed as the equivalent to market speculation in the investment market. Following GT Advanced Technology’s (GTAT) bankruptcy filing in early October 2014, the idea of applying sapphire material in consumer electronics has become ridiculed on the mainstream market.

LEDinside Chief Analyst Market Seminar 2015, was successfully held in Shenzhen Marco Polo Hotel located in Shenzhen, Guandong Province, China on Jan. 9, 2015. HC SemiTek was the honored title sponsor of this year’s seminar. LEDinside analysts shared their latest research findings on the LED industry, and an unprecedented number of industry elites gathered at this year’s hall.

U.S. LED manufacturer Cree’s recent lawsuit against Unity Opto and its luminaire client Feit Electronics will not impact the company’s revenue performance in 2015, a UDN report cited Unity Opto Spokesperson Jacky Wen saying.

Epistar Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) Board of Directors held simultaneous meetings to approve the sale of all shares of TMSC Solid State Lighting (TSMC SSL)  to Epistar at NT$ 1.46 per share, with the total price amounts to NT$ 825 million. Epistar will control 94% of TSMC SSL holdings after this acquisition. While TSMC will completely relinquish its control of TSMC SSL, the business operations will be jointly manned by the present TSMC SSL team and Epistar personnel.

LEDinside team would like to wish our readers an early Happy New Year. Our team will take a break in the following two days. This week, we have finally wrapped up our recap for 2014 with “LED Lighting’s Low Price Trends,” and there is a new article in our Russian feature section covering local leading distributor Rainbow’s perspective of the market.

In this interview for the Russian feature, LEDinside spoke to Vadim Smirnov, General Manager, Lighting Division, Rainbow Electronics, who spoke to LEDinside about local LED component sales, and gave an in depth market analysis of Russia’s lighting component retail.

The shipped amount of ceiling light in 2014 accounts for 38% of the total shipment value of all lights in China lighting E-commerce market, ranking first place with the highest shipments among all lighting products, according to the latest “2015 Chinese Lighting E-commerce Market Analysis” released by LEDinside, a research subsidiary of the Taipei-based market intelligence company TrendForce.

Major lighting brands in the Chinese lighting market are active in the e-commerce market and expanding online channels, according to a new research report by LEDinside, a division of the Taiwan-based market intelligence firm TrendForce. Competition is fierce in the burgeoning Chinese online market. The top four brands in terms of market share are Opple, NVC, Philips and Aozzo.

LED lighting has entered the state of cutthroat battlefield, and manufacturers are seeking new Blue Ocean Strategy. LED automotive lighting has a relatively higher gross margin compared with other traditional LED applications, attracting many Taiwanese LED makers to start planning to enter the automotive-use LED lighting field. Duff Lu, research manager at LEDinside, a research division of TrendForce, indicates that even though automotive-use LED certification periods are long and the entry barrier for entering the supply chain is high, but its overall market revenue from 2014-2018 has a compounded growth rate of 9%. In particular, the daytime running lamp (DRL) and high-low beam headlights (H/L Beam) have compounded annual production values of 21% and 48% respectively; they are two major production applications to be watched. 

For many LED manufacturers, 2014 has been a prosperous and challenging year. Lighting market demands were stronger than expected in 1H14, leading to a period of LED supply shortages. Despite the positive development, the industry was impacted by clients double booking and distributors rising inventory levels during second half of the year. Many manufacturers were impacted by the markets cooling demands, and price competition as a result. As a result a lot of manufacturers’ performance in first and second half of the year was very polarized.

The global Ultraviolet (UV) market value in 2014 is estimated to reach US $815 million, in which the UV LED market has about a 15% market share or equivalent to $122 million market value, according to the latest report “2015 LED Demand and Supply Market Outlook” published by LEDinside, a research division of TrendForce. “UV LED single unit prices are usually ten times higher than average LEDs, which is why many LED manufacturers have entered the market, even though it remains a relatively niche sector,” said Joanne Wu, an assistan...

The lighting-use LED market contracted 5-16% in the fourth quarter, while backlighting-use LED products fell 4-13% according to a new report from LEDinside, a division of the Taiwan-based market intelligence firm TrendForce. The average price of lighting-use LED products is falling with the arrival of the non-peak season and as competition intensifies among manufacturers, said Jack Kuo, an assistant research manager at LEDinside. “Orders are falling and profits are being squeezed,” he said. “For manufacturers to increase their market share, they need to introduce more new products.”

Nov 10, 2014 - LED components have been successfully introduced in light source products, according to the new report “2015 Global Lighting Market Outlook” by LEDinside, a division of the Taiwan-based market intelligence firm TrendForce. As the commercial lighting market expands, lighting tubes have become the most in-demand product with light bulbs second. Additionally, in the luminaire market, demand for ceiling lights high, but mostly in the home.

The LED packaging industry’s value is anticipated to only rise an estimated 3.2% on-year in 2015, from this year's US$14.6 billion to US$15 billion, according to the latest “Global LED package Industry Report” released by LEDinside, a division of Taiwan based market intelligence firm TrendForce. “With growth in the LED package market slowing and competitive pressure coming from China, the LED industry will face some major challenges next year,” said Roger Chu, research director at LEDinside. 

Faithful Apple fans stood in awe as Tim Cook demonstrated the new iPhone 6 and Apple Watch at Tuesday’s Special Event. The iPhone 6 met most analysts’ expectations that the sapphire screen would be absent. What was surprising was the larger iPhone Plus did make it to the show, while the rumored 12.9-inch iPad wasn’t to be seen. Other developments included the sapphire-glass encased Apple smart watch, which has become the Cupertino company’s first personalized gadget. For more please see below.