Osram boosts backend LED capacities to strengthen competitiveness
“With this step, we’re not only expanding our fully loaded backend LED capacities but also boosting our presence in the world’s largest single lighting market,” said Wolfgang Dehen, Chief Executive Officer of OSRAM Licht AG. “Asia, and particularly China, are key growth drivers for the global lighting and therefore the LED industry.”
China accounts for more than 20 percent of the world’s lighting market and has recorded a fast growth over the past years, particularly in terms of the uptake of LED lighting technologies. The size of the country’s total general illumination market was about €15 billion last year and is expected to rise to about €23 billion by 2019. The market share of semiconductor-based products such as LEDs is forecast to surge to over 60 percent by then compared with only 29 percent in 2013.
With the new LED assembly in Wuxi, Osram will be in an even better position to address that growth. The contracts for the plant’s location were signed in May 2012, with groundbreaking taking place in August that year.
The factory is planned and run by the Osram Opto Semiconductors business unit. The Wuxi plant is the company’s second backend site where LED chips are turned into light sources by assembling them into housings. The other site is located in Penang, Malaysia. Osram Opto Semiconductors also operates chip production sites (frontend) in Regensburg, Germany, as well as in Penang. The Wuxi plant will be capable of an annual output of up to several billion LEDs.
“Our business has always been a global business, and taking into account the size and growth prospects of the Chinese market, Wuxi is a perfect fit for our manufacturing footprint,” said Aldo Kamper, CEO of Osram Opto Semiconductors. “The plant will help us to further develop our professional know-how and understanding of our customers’ products to create even more added value for them.”
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