Taiwan-based LED epitaxial wafer and chip maker Epistar has received more orders than originally expected for LED chips used in backlight units (BLUs) from South Korea-based LCD TV vendors in December, according to the company.
Due to booming orders for BLUs for CD TVs, Epistar is utilizing 70-80% of its production capacity for blue-light LED chips. In contrast, utilization of production capacity for AlGaInP LED chips has fallen to about 60% due to slow demand for outdoor display panels, Epistar pointed out.
While Epistar will finish its stock swap to wholly own fellow maker Huga Optotech at the end of December 2012, the former has begun adjustment in personnel and improvement in the manufacturing processes and technology of the latter in a bid to get Huga poised to meet rebounding demand at the end of the first quarter of 2013, Epistar indicated. Epistar and Huga will together have 285 MOCVD sets consisting of 225 ones for blue-light LED chips and 60 ones for AlGaInP LED chips.
While Huga suffered gross margin of negative 52% and net loss of NT$1.1 billion (US$37.0 million) for January-September 2012, the company stand a chance of reaching break-even operation in the first quarter of 2013 at the earliest due to Epistar's help to improve operation, according to market analysts. Epistar posted January-September revenues of NT$13.502 billion, gross margin of 17.64%, pre-tax profit of NT$16.4 million and net loss of NT$8.6 million and is likely to see net loss for 2012 arising from non-operating losses, the sources pointed out.
