S. Korean, Chinese LED makers to take on Taiwanese firms

Taiwan's light-emitting diode (LED) makers are likely to face growing competition from South Korean and Chinese rivals, which have been spending big on the emerging industry, a Taiwanese think tank said Thursday. South Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese producers of LEDs, a semiconductor light source, have been aggressively expanding their production capacities to meet rising demand for LED application products such as LED TVs and LED lighting. The Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK) said South Korea is likely to take over Taiwan as the world's No. 2 LED manufacturer this year with a 24 percent share of the global market, immediately after Japan. It expected Taiwan to hold 19 percent of the global market share, 5 percentage points behind South Korea. In 2010, the market share of South Korea in LED packaging and modules surged to 21 percent from 14 percent in 2009, tying Taiwan for second place behind the 31 percent of Japan. The global LED industry is expected to grow 38 percent to US$20.8 billion this year from $15.1 billion in 2010. While Japanese manufacturers, equipped with the most comprehensive technology, will maintain the largest market share, their market share will be on the downward trend, the IEK predicted. China, which is currently the world's fourth-largest LED maker with about a 13 percent market share, is expected to trace closer to Taiwan, boosted by government support policies to promote energy efficient lighting, it said. "While Taiwan is leading China about two years in the technology, the gap is getting narrower," said Lin Zhixun, an analyst at the IEK. "Taiwan will face increasing pricing pressure from Chinese competitors." The IEK did not give its estimate on China's market share this year. Some market watchers expect China's global market share in LED to reach 32 percent in the first quarter of 2012, surpassing South Korea and Taiwan. As of the end of 2010, the world's top five LED makers are Japan's Nichia Corp., South Korea's Samsung LED Co., Germany's Osram Ltd., Cree Inc. from the U.S. and LG Innotek Co. from South Korea. Among the world's top 25 LED makers, Taiwan has the largest number of firms with 12, followed by Japan with five and South Korea with four. The U.S., Germany, the Netherlands and China respectively have one firm on the list.