Neo-Neon Holdings Ltd (真明麗控股), a Guangdong, China-based decorative light manufacturer founded by a Taiwanese, Ben Fan (樊邦弘), yesterday said it planned to expand its output seven-fold over the next three years.
“We plan to install 30 additional units of metalorganic chemical vapor deposition [MOVCD] systems in the next three years at our Yangzhou plant’s advanced light-emitting-diode [LED] production lines,” company chairman Fan told a media briefing in Taipei yesterday.
The plan would require a capital commitment of about US$30 million, the company said in Hong Kong earlier.
Neo-Neon, the world’s largest manufacturer of decorative lighting products with a 50 percent market share, currently operates five MOVCD systems with a monthly output of between 10,000 and 12,000 wafers, which can be used to produce 500 million units of decorative lighting products.
At full capacity, the 30 additional units will be able to produce between 60,000 and 72,000 wafers a month, which translates into a minimum of 3 billion units of decorative lighting products, the chairman said.
“We will take up half of the [wafer] output to support our own production [of decorative lights] and sell the remainder on the market,” Fan said, adding that he was confident the demand for non-decorative LED lighting would pick up soon.
If costs could be reduced by half, LED lighting products could easily expand their share, currently around 0.6 percent, of the global market for lighting products, estimated to be worth US$129 billion next year.
“That will translate into more than US$100 billion in new business opportunities for LED producers,” CEO Kris Tseng (曾金穗) told a media briefing yesterday.
After securing orders for more than 30,000 LED street lamps from several Chinese cities, the company is hoping to increase its share of the China market from 10 percent to 30 percent, Fan said.
The company also plans to tap into the LED backlight market for use in notebooks, TVs and monitors as well as automobiles.
To fund its expansion, Neo-Neon plans to raise NT$2.06 billion (US$64 million) via the issuance of 140 million shares of Taiwan depositary receipts next week at NT$14.7 apiece, its underwriter Fubon Securities Co (富邦證券) said yesterday.
Hurt by the global slump, the firm posted revenues of HK$554 million (US$71.5 million) in the first half of this year, down 23 percent from a year ago. Net profit was HK$42.3 million.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS