COVID-19 pandemic has led to lockdowns across the world with pause in business operation and production, resulting enormous impact globally. The technology industry, as one of the most affected field, not only needs to tackle the challenges brought by the coronavirus but also has to reconsider its strategies and operating plans for the post-pandemic world. As for the LED industry, since the supply chain mostly locates in Asia with the majority of production coming from China, plus high inventory due to oversupply in the past few years, the coronavirus epidemic has relatively s...

The novel coronavirus outbreak starting in China has led to cities lockdown in the country and the delay in production resume as local governments in China are trying hard to manage the epidemic. Despite that February 10 was set to be the official restarting day for work, several provinces and cities have postponed the date as they were afraid that the coronavirus would further spread. Also, many of the workers traveling from their hometown to the work places were required to take 14 days self-quarantine before going back to the factories and offices. As a result, operation can har...

The outbreak of coronavirus has affected the whole industry and LED is no exception. To further understand how individuals participate in the industry see the impact of coronavirus, LEDinside conducted a survey to provide a different insight of the industry.。 LEDinside collected 7471 voluntary samples and a valid sample of 6622. The result showed that 28% of the survey samples think their companies will still make profit under the circumstance. 38% say they are expecting business loss and the rest think the company will break even. (Image: Pixabay) 21% of the voters w...

As the world’s factory, the ongoing coronavirus epidemic caused continuous break for factories that affects worldwide companies. Technology companies from Taiwan and Korea are reporting delaying production as some of them have yet receive approval from the local governments to restart operation. (Image: Pixabay) According to a report of Business Korea, Samsung’s Tianjin plant which product TVs for the China market postponed the reopening for one more week and may need to push off the date again depending on the policy of the local government. Also, three of t...

Chinese factories have set their reopen day on February 10, 2020, after the extended Lunar New Year holiday due to coronavirus outbreak. However, since over 80 cities in China have been locked down or with strict community management, labors spreading all over the countries have difficulties returning their position, leading to further impacts on the industry. (Image: Pixabay) Despite that many companies in China began to work remotely since last week, on-site operation still requires labors to go back to the factories. Since the infection has yet to be controlled, large ga...

Coronavirus outbroke in China before Lunar New Year and led to the delay of operation resume in many cities. Chinese authorities have announced to postpone the working day until February 2 and February 10 and Wubei province, which most impacted by the novel coronavirus, will be back to work after February 14. As the global production center of LED, China’s decisions on workday delay and city seal-off are bringing impacts to the LED supply chain. LEDinside learned that most of the LED industry players in China are expected to be back to operation on February...

LED manufacturers all over the world have suffered from low profit and market uncertainty due to continuous price competition and on-going trade dispute. Besides cutting off lighting business, LEDinside observed the strategies developed by worldwide LED companies under the difficult circumstance to alleviate impacts on their business. Micro LED and Mini LED: the Turning Point for Taiwan LED Manufacturers Taiwan-based LED companies were challenged by Chinese competitors with their low price strategies in the past few years. However, Mini LED and Micro...

2018 has proven to be a difficult year for many LED manufacturers: the industry as a whole was burdened with the weight of oversupply, and the US-China trade dispute caused end demand to stagnate. This led to a less-than-expected business performance for LED manufacturers in general. According to the LED Industry Demand and Supply Data Base report by LEDinside, LED packaging revenue in 2018 reached US$ 18.4 billion, a mere growth of 3.1 % over 2017. LEDinside Research Director, Roger Chu, points out that revenue rankings for the top ten LED packaging...

The U.S.-based LED giant Cree has adjusted its management team. After the new CFO and chairman were appointed and the new members of the board of directors were elected in the six months, the head of the LED division has stepped down, reported Triangle Business Journal. The executive vice president and general manager of Cree’s LED business unit, David Emerson, has left the position. Claude Demby, formerly senior vice president of strategy and corporate development, took over the duty. (Image: Cree) The company has been through a shuffle in the sen...

LED companies have been keeping low stocking due to the sluggish demand in the end markets in 2018 and impacts of the China-US trade war, according to LEDinside, a division of TrendForce. Looking ahead to 2019, the overall industry still has risks of oversupply, but demands for niche applications, including fine-pitch LED digital display, Mini LED backlight, UV-C LED, automotive lighting and high-efficiency lighting LED, have a positive outlook and may drive the market growth in the future. After the recent G20 summit, China and the U.S. have announced to ...

LED manufacturers reported revenue drop for November as the demands decrease in the off-peak season. AOT, the LED company under the Foxconn Group, has posted a revenue of NT$ 332 million (US$ 10.76 million) for November with a decrease of 10.4% MoM and 39.9% YoY. LED backlighting is the major business of the company which accounts for more than 90 percent of its revenue. Therefore, the dropped demands of TV backlight due to seasonality led to the decreased monthly revenue of AOT. (Image: AOT) AOT also began the development of Mini and Micro LE...

Lite-On Technology has announced capital increase in its subsidiaries in Vietnam and Jordan for expanding production capacities outside China. The total amount of the investment is US$ 97 million

The Hong Kong International Lighting Fair is Asia’s largest and most influential professional lighting exhibition with the huge number of buyers and large trade volume. Every year at the Autumn Fair, the LED Bulb Expert- WELLMAX garners big success by offering customers excellent lighting experiences.

Taiwan-based LED packagers Edison Opto and Bright LED Electronics (BRTLED) have reported their strategies in response to the price competition of LED products and the impacts of trade war. 

Taiwanese LED manufacturers have been affected by the tepid LED market resulting from LED price declines due to oversupply. The escalating trade war has also impacted the demand of the end market. 

According to LED Industry Demand and Supply Data Base, the latest report by LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, the global LED industry is projected to reach a market value of US$ 18.796 billion in 2018, with an increase of 4% YoY. The market is slowing down as the oversupply situation contributes to LED price declines, together with the impacts of escalating trade war on demand in the end market.  

In April, the U.S. government has proposed a list of 1300 Chinese exports and announced to impose 25 percent tariffs on these products, following the Section 301 investigation. Later in July, the Trump administration released the second tranche of additional tariffs on US$ 200 billion worth of Chinese goods. As LED products are included in both tariff lists, LEDinside has continued to follow and analyze the impacts of the tariffs on LED lighting business. 

The first Micro LED product is Crystal LED Display that Sony showcased at CES 2012. Outwardly similar to a regular TV, it was an ultimate combination of the most state-of-the-art technologies back then. However, Sony, after its first success, had gone silent for quite a while until 2016.

Well, it is not much of a surprise that the design and features of the iPhone X are largely in line with expectations. It, different from all previous iPhones, sports a full screen OLED display with a bit of ‘bangs’, where Apple puts the sensors, cameras, and the speaker. “For more than a decade, our intention has been to create an iPhone that is all display. The iPhone X is the realization of that vision,” said Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer.

On May 22, San'an Optoelectronics Co., Ltd announced its wholly owned daughter company, Sanan Optoelectronics Hong Kong Company Limited would set up a subsidiary in the USA with its own funding of USD 10 million. This US-based firm would mostly focus on research, development, manufacture, and distribution of visible light communication (VLC) technology.

1H17 has been a hectic time for the LED industry, especially for Chinese up- and midstream manufacturers. The recouping demand lightened up the market sentiment and many A-list companies reported their large investments which LEDinside would like to share with you here.

Taiwanese LED industry underwent significant changes in senior management including in leading LED manufacturer Everlight, Optotech, and Unistar Opto, reported Chinese-language newspaper Commercial Times.

Taiwan’s LED industry production value increased nearly 15% year-on-year during the first nine months of 2016, as more governments around the globe rolled out policies supporting environmental friendly businesses, said the Ministry of Economics Affair (MOEA) recently.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science published the Fiscal Year 2017 Phase I, Release 2 Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) on November 28, 2016, for the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs. Under DE-FOA-0001619, whose complete listing of technical topics was released on October 31, DOE seeks applicants for grants directed toward FY17 Phase I, Release 2 projects. Topics for this funding opportunity can be found at //science.energy.gov/sbir/funding-opportunities and include LED and OLED lighting (see topic 10b).

Xiaolan, a small town with a population of 157,000 residents located in Guangdong Province in Southern China has seen its LED industry market value balloon in a short span of 8-years, reported Zhongshan Daily.

China’s optoelectronic power house is situated in its southern province Xiamen, which is known for its strong LED lighting industry, reported Xiamen Daily.

Korea’s LED industry took off at a much later date than Japan or Taiwan, in fact it developed at around the same time as China, but has advanced at an accelerated rate. However, the country’s LED industry plummeted much sharply compared to Japan, China and Taiwan. The Korean LED industry development occurred in three phases the first was started by upstream LED manufacturers EE coined the “double E era”, followed by Samsung and LG’s entry during the peak of the Solid State Lighting (SSL) phase, followed by large scale withdraw from the market, in response to emerging Chinese LED industry.

Certain Taiwanese financial institutes are starting to tighten their credit policies on three industries that have been affected by intense market competition from China, including LED, solar energy and displays, reported UDN recently.

GCS Holdings, a pure III-V compound semiconductor wafer foundry announced it sealed an acquisition deal with Chinese manufacturer San’an Opto. San’an Opto will purchase 100% of GCS Holdings’ stake for US $226 million.

Philips decision to sell Lumileds to Chinese financial group Go Scale Capital has taken a sharp turn. The business deal was abruptly halted by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), due to unknown concerns. Philips and Go Scale Capital has been forced to call off the deal, which has sent shockwaves throughout the market and caused new changes in manufacturers’ competition race.