Osram plans LED assembly plant in China Press release, May 28; Alex Wolfgram, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 29 May 2012] Osram has signed a contract with the Wuxi New District Administrative Commit-tee to build a new assembly plant in the Chinese province of Jiangsu. LED chips will be packaged in housings at the new backend facility starting in late 2013 with the Regensburg and Penang (frontend) plants exclusively continuing to make the actual LED chips.
In the face of sharply rising demand for LED-based products, Osram has opted to set up a further plant in Wuxi, China, to augment the capacity of its chip plants in Regensburg, Germany and Penang, Malaysia. By doing so, Osram said it is strengthening its access to the lighting industry's largest single market worldwide. The new plant is scheduled to be up and running by the end of 2013 and will be able to accommodate up to 1,600 employees when fully operational.
The new backend facility at Wuxi near Shanghai will install LED chips manufactured in the frontend plants at Regensburg and Penang in their housings. The new assembly plant in Wuxi will also augment the Penang plant by manufacturing general, automotive and industrial lighting products for key segments of the Chinese market. The plant's added back-end LED capacity will enable the company to capitalize on China's fast-growing market and support the two plants in Germany and Malaysia, according to Osram.
Market researchers at IMS Research have predicted strong growth for opto semiconductors such as LED components and laser diodes with average growth rates of around 5% worldwide in the coming years. The fastest growth is expected to come in China during the same period, with an average growth rate of 10%. More so, according to a market survey conducted by consulting firm McKinsey, the rapidly growing Asian region today already accounts for around 35% of today's global general lighting market. This share is expected to increase to 45% by 2020. Forecasts predict the Chinese market alone, worth over €8 billion (US$10 billion) today, to more than double by 2020.
