Jason Wu, chairman of Taiwan-based LED lighting firm Edison Opto, will also be the chairman for LED packaging house Lumenmax starting January 1, 2013. This will allow Edison Opto to expand business into LED packaging. The firm also plans to expand monthly capacity for its low- and medium-power plastic lead chip carrier (PLCC) products to 150 million units. Edison Opto's plant in Taipei, Taiwan will mainly focus on production of chip on board (COB) products and it hopes to expand monthly capacity from 200,000 to one million units. Market observers believe Edison Opto's 2013 revenues are likely to show 30% growth on year.
Wu noted that 2012 is likely to be the worst year for the LED lighting market. Nevertheless, with the introduction of various combinations and the development of new products, revenues in 2013 are likely to show an on-year increase. In particular, Wu added, China's corporate lighting market has strong growth as customers have been rolling out LED lighting products into hotels, chain stores, and local lighting decoration firms. Wu predicts revenues from China will increase from 30-40% of total revenues 2012 to 40-50% of total revenues in 2013. This increase is mainly due to rising demand for corporate lighting and LED lighting design and manufacturing services (LDMS), an integrated solutions.
Edison is also expanding distribution channels in the international market by setting up subsidiaries in the US and Germany.
According to Wu, of Taiwan-based firms Edison has spent the most on adding equipment. In 2012, Edison spent NT$200 million (US$6.88 million) on equipment and NT$100 million on plant construction. Edison plans to continue expanding capacity and stated its total accumulated capex in 2013 will be close to NT$250 million.
Lumenmax recently announced the termination of trading its shares on the OTC market. Lumenmax has been focusing on low- and medium-power PLCC products and has a customer base made up mainly by China-based firms. Due to LED price competition in China in second-half 2012, the firm has been seeing a continuous fall in sales. To effectively lower operating costs, the company's board of directors decided to retract company shares from the OTC market.
Currently, Edison owns 5% of Lumenmax shares.
Market observers believe Edison Opto will see a consolidated average gross margin of 12% in 2012 and expect 2013 gross margin to be around 14-15%.
Jason Wu, chairman of Edison Opto
