Panasonic's Restructuring Suggests Business to Taiwan's LED Industry
Taiwan's industry executives estimated that the island's LED industry would benefit from Panasonic's restructuring plan aimed at quickly snatching up sizable share of mainland China market for LED lighting by offering less expensive but profitable products.
In January 2012, the Japanese household-appliance conglomerate will combine the LED lighting operation with the independent Panasonic Lighting with the aim of bagging around 40% of the Chinese mainland's market for LED lighting by the end of 2015 and boosting profit by 10% through halving costs.
Panasonic estimated the consolidated entity's sales to reach 200 billion yen (US$2.5 billion at US$1:78 yen ) in 2015, spiking from the projected 32.3 billion yen (US$414 million) for 2011 Panasonic Lighting and the Panasonic's lighting operations.
Panasonic has commanded 35% of Japan's market for LED lighting, higher than recorded by Toshiba and Sharp. LED lighting penetration in Japan has reached 30%. Panasonic estimated such a high penetration would be achieved in mainland China soon.
Panasonic is selling over 2,000 types of LED lighting fixtures and 30 types of LED light bulbs in Japan.
Taiwan's industry executives estimated Panasonic's cost-reduction plan would bring Taiwan's LED chip and package suppliers huge business given their lower production costs than that Japanese suppliers offer. Perspective suppliers include Epistar Inc., Lite-On Technology Corp., Lextar Electronics Corp., Unity Opto Technology Co., Ltd., Edison Opto Corp., and Ligitek Electronics Co., Ltd.
They said compared with South Korean LED makers, Taiwanese suppliers are more competitive since most of them have opened workshops in mainland China, which is now noted not only for low production costs but also for huge market.
