Everlight triumphs in automotive LED lamp business

Taipei, Jan. 26, 2005 (CENS)--Everlight Electronics Co., Ltd., a leading Taiwanese manufacturer of light-emitting diode (LED) lamps, recently won approval and order from European auto-parts supplier Siemens VDO for its LED modules and orders from some South Korean carmakers.

The company's vice president, B.Y. Liu, pointed out that his company had firmly secured the Siemens VDO contract and begun delivering the products contracted by South Korean carmakers. He said the contracts mostly wanted blue-light diode modules for dashboards.

Liu said LED modules for automobiles would account for an increasing portion of the company's revenue in the years to come.

Everlight Chairman Y.F. Yieh said pointed out that hurdle for entry into automotive-lamp industry remains high as all entrants must meet all industry standards and the verifications usually take time. However, he added that approved newcomers could expect profitable orders to stream in steadily, a situation in contrast to the undercutting competition in diode supplies for handsets.

Unity Opto Technology Co., Ltd. Is the first Taiwanese LED supplier to swoop into car-lamp business. Orders for infra-red emission modules used in cars helped push up the company's pre-tax earnings to NT$4.2 per share last year, nearly on par with that of Epistar Corp., another leading Taiwanese LED-product supplier.

Unity Opto Chairman C.H. Wu pointed out that the latitude for Taiwan's LED suppliers to grow in auto-lamp market remained high as they had totally sliced only 5% of the market.

Everlight estimated output of its white-light diodes for back-light modules equipped in color super twisted nematic (CSTN) liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) would double next quarter, the company's another strength for pushing up revenue. The company is now having the diodes verified at two back-light module suppliers specializing in wares for thin-film transistor liquid-crystal displays (TFT-LCDs).

As to production of diodes for mobile phones, the company expected to boost the shipment to 500,000 to one million diodes a month next quarter from this quarter's 100,000 to 200,000 diodes thanks to new orders from some Taiwanese suppliers, Siemens of Germany, Sagem of France and Nokia of Finland.

Everlight earned NT$5.1 per share before being taxed last year, making it the most profitable LED supplier in Taiwan and beating market expectations.