Nichia Retained Top Spot in China’s LED Package Market

China has become a major battleground for local and international LED package suppliers as the competition in the global LED market continues to intensify. The 2016 Chinese LED Chip and Package Industry Market Report by LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, finds Nichia held on to its position as the revenue leader in the Chinese package market for 2015, while Lumileds rose to second place and MLS followed at third. The top 10 LED package suppliers in the 2015 global revenue ranking generated a total of US$3.3 billion, down 15% from 2014. Together they controlled 38% of the Chinese package market, showing an annual decline of 8%. The market last year was still fragmented among various players.

LEDinside analyst Allen Yu noted that international package companies represented five of the top 10 suppliers in China by revenue for last year. Domestic package companies also showed their strength by taking three spots in this ranking. Chinese suppliers were able to deliver impressive revenue results and wrest market shares away from their international suppliers by offering products with high-cost performance ratios and narrowing the technology gap with the international competitors. It is expected that more suppliers in China’s top 10 ranking will be domestic in the future.

Nichia saw its revenue from China fell significantly last year on account of exchange rate fluctuations and changes in the company’s operations. Nonetheless, Nichia remained as the revenue leader in China despite suffering notable loss in the local market share. Lumileds climbed to the No. 2 spot in the Chinese market ranking because the rapid growth in the general lighting and automotive lighting sectors boosted its revenue considerably. Major domestic supplier MLS stayed at No. 3 even as its market share in China dropped a little. Taiwan-based Everlight expanded its presence in the Chinese market by developing different applications such as automotive lighting LEDs, fine-pitch display LEDs and flash LEDs. Everlight was placed fourth in the 2015 Chinese market ranking. OSRAM Opto followed at fifth as it also found success in the automotive lighting sector as well as in the infrared (IR) LED market. NationStar jumped to the seventh place due to its efforts in the fine-pitch display LED market. Honglitronic’s revenue expanded substantially after its acquisition of Smalite and became one of the top 10 suppliers in China for the first time last year, knocking Advanced Optoelectronic Technology (AOT) out of the ranking.