U.S. sapphire furnace and sapphire manufacturer GTAT, the primary sapphire supplier to Apple, filed for bankruptcy on October 6. As of September 29, GTAT reported having US$85 million in cash. Under the US$578 million multi-year agreement GTAT and Apple signed last November, GTAT must supply a certain volume of sapphire ingots to Apple while Apple was to pay GTAT in four installments with the final US$139 million payment scheduled for the end of October. But low sapphire yield rates have made Apple withhold the last payment.
Following the spin-off of Osram from Siemens, global lighting giant Philips recently announced it would split off its lighting business into a stand-alone company on September 23. That move follows an announcement in June that Philips would combine Lumileds, its LED components business and automotive lighting business into a separate company.
In the third quarter, when LED market activity typically slows, LED backlighting prices declined an average of 3-8% as demand fell. Meanwhile, LED demand for lighting applications remained flat, but price competition in the overall LED market, remained fierce, as prices fell 6-12%, according to LEDinside, a subsidiary of the Taiwan-based market intelligence firm TrendForce.
The new agreement between leading U.S. LED manufacturer Cree and Taiwan electronics firm Lextar, which stipulates Cree will invest $US 83 million in the Taiwanese firm, comes as a surprise, according to LEDinside, a subsidiary of the Taiwan-based market research firm TrendForce.
The quickly spreading LED lighting market has attracted international manufacturers to enter China’s LED package market, according to the latest “China’s LED Package Industry Market Report 2014” by LEDinside, a subdivision of global market research organization TrendForce. In 2013, the Chinese LED package market value was up 20% Year-on-Year (YoY) to US$7.2 billion. Top 10 ranking manufacturers in the industry clinched a combined market share of 43.6%.
