The production value of Taiwan’s light-emitting diode (LED) industry rose by almost 15% in the first nine months of 2016 from a year earlier as many countries have been supporting the environment friendly business, as reflected by the statistics of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA). During this nine-month period, the output of the local LED lighting industry totalled NT$7.6 billion (US$238 million), up 14.8% from a year earlier and accounting for 59.6% of the total production value of the country’s lighting business, showed the MOEA statistics.
The significant growth of the LED sector helped boost the output of the entire domestic lighting industry, which climbed 5.3% year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2016 to NT$12.7 billion, according to the statistics. Since the government began recording output data for the local LED lighting industry in 2008, the production value has been growing each year as consumers become more environmentally conscious.
Based on the data for the first nine months of the year, the MOEA said, the figure for the whole of 2016 could break the 2015 record when the sector’s output hit NT$9.2 billion, making up 56.2% of the local total lighting production value. According to MOEA, the growth of the LED sector indicates that energy efficient lighting equipment is gaining support in the global market, particularly as prices have been dropping since 2010.
When it comes to counting numbers, in the first nine months of the year, Taiwan produced 26.55 million LED lighting units, an increase of 13.8% from a year earlier, with 74.6% being exported to which the MOEA said that the United States was the largest buyer of Taiwan’s LED lighting products in the first 10 months of the year, importing US$172 million worth, citing Customs data.
However, the figure was 12.9% lower than during the same period of 2015 due to a decline in the price of low-end LED lighting products. In the 10-month period, LED lighting exports to the US accounted for 48.1% of Taiwan’s total exports, the MOEA said, noting that the figure for the whole of 2015 was 51.6%.
