Epistar and Lextar Electronics, two Taiwan-based LED epitaxial wafer and chip makers, as well as Everlight Electronics and Unity Opto Technology, two Taiwan-based providers of LED chip packaging services, saw their revenues for December 2012 decrease on month and those for the fourth quarter drop on quarter.
The sequential decrease in December revenues was mainly due to weak demand for LED backlight application, Epistar indicated. Epistar expects overall demand to rebound in March 2013.
Lextar expects direct-type LED backlight penetration of 32-55-inch LCD TVs to increase to 40-50% in 2013, with the highest penetration to be in the China market. In addition to development of third-generation direct-type LED backlight units, Lextar is developing new models of high-brightness LED tubes and ceiling LED light panels specifically for use in the Japan market.
Everlight expects its monthly revenues to sequentially improve in January and significantly rise in March.
Unity shipped about 200,000 LED light bulbs in the fourth quarter of 2012 and expects the same shipment volume for the first quarter of 2013 and to ship 400,000 bulbs in the second quarter. Unity expects the proportion of total revenues for LED lighting products to rise from 15% in 2012 to nearly 30% in 2013. The company plans to set up automated production lines of LED light bulbs in 2013.
