19 April 2011

LED shipments growing 40% to 165bn in 2011

The light-emitting diode (LED) market is expected to explode as unit shipments increase more than 40% in 2011 and double between 2010 and 2013, according to the report ‘The Solid State Lighting Revolution: Market Analysis and Insight On Reducing Manufacturing Costs’ from The Information Network.

The rapid increase in the market for LEDs used in applications such as notebook backlights and automobile headlights is also spurring heavy capital investments by LED makers, the market research firm notes. LEDs are hence creating a niche market for conventional suppliers of semiconductor processing tools and a lucrative market for suppliers of metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) reactors.

Shipments of high-brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs) will grow from less than 100 billion in 2010 to nearly 135 billion units in 2011, forecasts The Information Network. In addition, shipments of LEDs for backlight units (BLU-LEDs) will grow from 20 billion to 30 billion units. Together, LED shipments will grow from 120 billion to 165 billion units.

In 2010, Nichia led the market with a 15% share (down from 16% in 2009). Samsung LED rocketed to second place with a 10.5% share (up from 6.5% in 2009). Cree was in fifth place with a 6% share in 2010, followed by LumiLEDs at 5.5% (in 2009, their market shares were reversed).

In 2010, Aixtron led the market in MOCVD tool shipments with slightly more than a 55% share, followed by Veeco with a 41% share of the total 786 tools sold. In 2009, Aixtron held nearly a 70% share followed by Veeco with a 25% share of just 228 tools sold.

Pushing for further growth in MOCVD installations is China, which introduced a MOCVD stimulus program that is expected to result in $1.6bn in spending on MOCVD tools from 2010 to 2012, notes The Information Network. In 2010, China represented nearly 35% of MOCVD installations.

LEDs currently represent a $10bn niche market compared to the $250bn semiconductor market, comments the market research firm. The consensus forecast of 786 MOCVD tools represents a market of nearly $2bn (based on an average selling price of $2.5m per tool). MOCVD represents 8% of the typical cost breakdown for a packaged LED. Other front-end tools represent more than 3% of the cost, equating to an additional $500m market for lithography and metrology tools. The biggest sector (65%) represents back-end processes such as substrate removal, chip separation, and packaging.

The Information Network concludes that backlight sectors will exhibit the fastest growth in the HB-LED market, with an overall compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 40%, led by the LCD TV sector exhibiting a CAGR of 300.3% between 2007 and 2012.

See related items:

GaN LED market to grow 38% in 2011

LED pricing pressure extending into Q1/2011

Booming MOCVD market gathers pace

Tags: LEDs MOCVD

Visit: www.theinformationnet.com/led.html

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