When LED Market Will Grow again?

LED MOCVD Installation

Korea and Taiwan dominated in number of MOCVD installation in 2009.

China came up as leading installation region and became major site for installation since Q4’10. China is expected to continue to be the dominant MOCVD market until Q3’ 12

But China will shrink from three third down to 60% in Q4’12 when Taiwan and Korea rebounds.

Largest MOCVD Installation Base

Epistar is expected to be #1 MOCVD customer in 2012, followed by San’an, GCL Opto, SemiLEDs and Genesis Photonics onpur.

Such Rapid expansion in 2010-2011lead to an overcapacity that we think it will be fully utilized only by mid 2012.

LED lighting Status

Total LED lighting demand in Q2 & Q3 2011keeps increasing. The Demand

is 3.2 billion units for Q2’11. And the demand is predicted to be 3.4 billion units for Q3’11. The Growth is not seen as significant as we expected beginning of the year.

LED lighting Players

Due to Government encouragement for going greener energy, limited resources of these islands, as well the March 11 Quake issue that rocked the Nuclear Power plant, alerted Japanese Citizen and Government on using more efficient Source of Light. Japan, as biggest market for LED bulbs in 2011, with market share of 63 %, Japan will remain the biggest lighting market until 2014. Price of LED replacement Bulb keeps on dropping.

The downtrend of LED caused the LED light bulb price to drop from USD83 /Klm in 2010 to USD 52 / Klm at this stage. However, the initial cost of the LED light bulbs is still much higher than that of general light bulbs, so it is still too soon to say whether LED light can fully replace the latter. ASP of Japan LED light bulb was Yen 3000 for 5W in Q1 2010, and dropped to Yen 2,000 in Q1 2011, the speed of ASP drops slow down. That indicates that the adoption is slow down in Q2 2011.

LED bulb growth in China, North America and Europe will be higher than other areas from 2011 to 2014

China - biggest market for LED street lights in 2011, but due to China government policies. With market share of 55 %, but China will slightly decline to 50 % in 2013.

Economic Situation

We are now experiencing dual Core Economy (USA and Europe) slow down though the scale and intensity was not as worse of September 2008. We will not having the same good old day as the maket would bounce back as early as 2009 Q2 3 after Leman Brothers melt down 15 Sep 2008. Government Policy will not focus on Green Energy harvest rater than on job creation, economic reform, and stimulus plan for economy. Less incentive programmes for LED lighting penetration will be generated.

LED lighting Type

Highest penetration in spot lights Due to halogen replacements

Government policies are expected to accelerate LED penetration in street lights after 2011.

Package LED market Forecast

In 2010-2011, rapid expansion of MOCVD in China

Initiated in Korea and Taiwan since 2009.

Cause capacity utilization rate of <50% for certain tools by mid 2012.

It will take 12-18 months to absorb this overcapacity, and that causes a short down cycle

The down cycle will extend through mid 2013!

Some consolidations will bring the industry back to more usual utilization rates of at least 80%, before any capex initiation for next new investment including Manufacturing Equipment such as MOCVD, Die Sorter, Die bonder, wire bonder, tester, package sorter and Taping Machines.

Equipment Forecast for LED lighting

If adoption of LED for SSL happens faster than initially envisioned, it would lead to higher equipment investment levels. Excess capacity installed in 2010-2011 is absorbed much more quickly than expected. The Equipment market will bounce back significantly in Q1 2013 to respond to accelerated demand for general lighting applications.

HK Snob