Global and China LED INDUSTRY REPORT

The manufacturers in Chinese Mainland belong to the 3rd camp. They are of small scale, scattered, and of low
technology. Take packaging as an example, there are not more than 5 packaging plants in South Korea, while in
Chinese Mainland, there are nearly 1,000, many of which are dealing with resin package of minimum technical
t t d f f hi h content and few of which are engaged in SMD packaging. The annual revenue of all these manufacturers fails to
reach that of EVERLIGHT, the leading enterprise in Taiwan, and there are also large discrepancies between
EVERLIGHT and South Korean manufacturers. The technologies possessed by manufacturers in Chinese
Mainland are low-level and many of the manufacturers produce quaternionic green/yellow LED which is mainly
applied in outdoor landscape, decoration or advertisement. Mainland China is the world’s largest production base
of consumer electronics, but the purchasing right is centralized in the hands of Taiwanese and South Korean
manufacturers. As a result, the mainland manufacturers can only see the rapid development of LED market in
consumer electronics field but cannot benefit from it. As for the general lighting field, it is more beyond their reach
due to their backward technology.
The mainland manufacturers cannot share the high-growth LED market, but they have the highest investment
enthusiasm and LED projects start everywhere. Large quantities of MOCVD equipment have been bought in and
the LED project in Wuhu alone needs more than 200 sets of MOCVD equipment. A single set of MOCVD
equipment possesses over 2,000 parameters, so, it is not so easy to produce qualified products. In addition, there
are numerous thresholds for LED patent, and incaution will cause troubles. Some enterprises, especially NICHIA,
are never bored with patent lawsuits.