The list of firms that have been chosen in China's first round of LED lighting subsidies has been announced. Market observers believe the 39 firms will obtain a total subsidy for 83.7 million units of LED lighting. The total bid will likely reach CNY2 billion (US$318 million).
China-based Kingsun Optoelectronic and Lampearl obtained approximately of 10% of the bid.
For this round of bids, 113 firms participated and 39 firms were selected. This also coincides with China's policy of banning the use of incandescent lighting in October. Among the subsidized 87.3 million units of LED lighting, 78.5 million units are for indoor lighting, the focus of the bid.
Philips is the only international firm that qualified, however, the firm only obtained 100,000 units of indoor and 30,000 of outdoor lighting. Kingsun and Lampearl obtained a total bid of 400,000 units of indoor and 70,000 of outdoor lighting.
Market observers noted that Taiwan-based upstream LED chipmakers are to benefit from the subsidy as the firms are one of the main providers for indoor lighting.
LED chipmakers such as Epistar, Formosa Epitaxy, and Genesis Photonics have been emphasizing high-brightness products while Lextar focuses on vertical integration, and these firms are likely to be included in the supply chain. LED packaging houses such as Unity Opto and Everlight have been forming strategic alliances with China-based firms. However, China has a large number of LED packaging houses, hence it will be more difficult for these firms to be included in the supply chain.
