Osram opens LED assembly plant in China

In a further move to strengthen its position in the market for LEDs, Osram has opened its LED assembly plant in Wuxi, China.

The factory has a floor area of about 100,000 square metres and will employ as many as 2100 people by 2017. Osram is investing a low three-digit-million euro amount to set up the plant. “With this step, we’re not only expanding our fully loaded backend LED capacities but also boosting our presence in the world’s largest single lighting market,” said Wolfgang Dehen, CEO of Osram Licht AG. “Asia, and particularly China, are key growth drivers for the global lighting and therefore the LED industry.”

China accounts for more than 20% of the world’s lighting market and has recorded a fast growth over the past years, particularly in terms of the uptake of LED lighting technologies. The size of the country’s total general illumination market was about AU$22 billion last year and is expected to rise to about AU$34 billion by 2019. The market share of semiconductor-based products such as LEDs is forecast to surge to over 60% by then compared with only 29% in 2013.

The contracts for the plant’s location were signed in May 2012, with ground breaking taking place in August that year. “Osram’s new LED assembly plant will play a key role in forging Wuxi’s LED industry value chain, and we believe operation of the plant will help Wuxi to become one of the foremost optoelectronic semiconductor bases in China, and even Asia,” said Wang Quan, deputy secretary of Wuxi Party Committee and Mayor of Wuxi.

The factory is planned and run by the Osram Opto Semiconductors business unit. It is the company’s second backend site where LED chips are turned into light sources by assembling them into housings. The other site is located in Penang, Malaysia. Osram Opto Semiconductors also operates chip production sites (front-end) in Regensburg, Germany, as well as in Penang. The Wuxi plant will be capable of an annual output of up to several billion LEDs. The product range also includes infrared diodes and semiconductor-based lasers.