Taiwan's LED market heats up

Taiwan's light-emitting diode (LED) market grew by more than 16 percent in the first half of the year, buoyed by Beijing Olympic lighting efforts and higher energy prices, according to LED industry groups.

The companies reported first half sales rose to NT$24.2 billion ($771.3 million USD) from NT$20.8 billion, based on information from the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

Some of the application hotspots in the market contributing to the growth are LEDs used as backlights for notebook computers and lights for traffic signals and illuminating factory operations, said LEDinside, an analyst firm based in Taipei.

Taiwan's government said it plans to replace all of the island's incandescent-type traffic lights with LED lights over the next three years.

The overall high-brightness LED market is forecast to grow at a cumulative aggregate growth rate of 20 percent, reaching $11.4 billion in 2012, according to research firm Strategies Unlimited.

There are several Taiwan-based LED makers, which includes Arima Optoelectronics, Bright LED Electronics, Epistar, Everlight Electronic, Formosa Epitaxy and Genesis Photonics. The market leader is North Carolina-based Cree (NASDAQ: CREE) (See LED maker Cree's light brightens with acquisition).

Taiwan has the world's second largest LED industry with a 20 percent share of the global market, according to LEDinside. Japan has the world's largest LED industry with a 37 percent share of the world market.

In related LED news, Singapore-based Avago Technologies recently filed for an IPO with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm plans to raise $400 million in ordinary shares through its IPO.

Avago's product line includes high brightness and high power LEDs, color sensors, and display backlighting module solutions.

The company started out as part of Hewlett-Packard in 1961 and was spun off when Avago’s parent company Agilent semiconductor products group was spun off from HP in 1999.

For the twelve months ended Oct. 31, 2007, Avago generated net revenues from continuing operations of $1.527 billion, and in 2006, it had sales of $1.399 billion, according to the SEC filing.

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