2013 TILS Cast Taiwanese Lighting Suppliers in Positive Light

One foreign buyer suggests more multinational makers be invited

The Taiwan International Lighting Show this year (2013 TILS), held on March 26-29, opened with Vice President Wu Den-yih stressing that the government is marking new-generation lighting for development as one of the six major newly-emerging industries in the official “Green Energy Industry Sunrise Program.”

Wu says that, with promotion by government and manufacturers, new-generation lighting with energy-efficiency, mercury-free, highly-efficient luminosity as well as long life, easily adjustable light emission and color temperature, such lighting will certainly become mainstream to improve society.

Wu also said that, with LED lighting being the backdrop of the Hsinchu Lantern Festival this year, it's easy to see that Taiwan's LED manufacturers are fully capable of making LED lighting as beautiful as it is functional.

The 2013 TILS was organized by the Taiwan External Trade Promotion Council (TAITRA) and Taiwan Lighting Fixture Export Association (TLFEA), with the China Economic News Service (CENS) as supporter.

The TILS, so far held for three years, has seen both exhibitor and booth numbers rise to show recognition and support amid makers.

TAITRA Chairman Wang Chih-kang said 333 lighting companies took part this year using 786 booths, with continued participation rate of nearly 60%.

Taiwan's LED lighting industry has substantial strengths, backed by integrated supply chain from R&D to manufacturing, as well as a world-caliber optoelectronics industry as LED's upstream with 30 years of development, said David Chang, chairman of Taiwan Lighting Fixture Exporter Association (TLFEA). He added that Taiwanese LED lighting makers have great potential to grow driven by eco concern coupled with public policy.

Cho Shih-chao, Vice Minister of Economic Affairs, said that this year's suppliers displayed the latest in highly-efficient lighting, reflecting the government's energy saving and carbon reduction policies, enabling international buyers to source top-end products and also raising awareness amid consumers eco-friendly lamps.

Cho stressed that the global LED lighting market will likely grow steadily 30% in 2013, with global LED lighting production throughout 2020 to total US$65.8 billion, with future development focused on the Japanese, Chinese, European and American LED markets.

International Visitors
The show this year drew around 1,300 international buyers, mainly from Germany, Britain, the U.S., and Turkey, with TAITRA having set up some 130 one-on-one procurement meetings.

“With growing popularity of green lighting in recent years, my company has chosen LED as the main light source,” said Vigne Geolic, from Tekni LED in France, a company focusing on production of home lighting fixtures. Geolic believes, with LED home lighting product still priced higher than traditional lighting, consumers care more about design than price as the main purchasing concern. The French buyer visited the show mainly for new ideas.

Italian designer Giuliano Gaspari has worked in lighting design for many years, coming this year to Taipei with wife to also find inspiration, saying that lighting is very important in daily life and is also inextricably linked with consumers. So he always contemplates to use design as life quality enhancer. The Italian saw many innovative products at the show, being convinced that further emergence of LED lighting meets global demand for energy efficiency and carbon reduction and also gives designers broader creative space.

Anssi Lehtonen, from Finland, works for Airam, a company focused on office lighting, but has in recent years branched into outdoor lighting, mainly due to existing popularity of outdoor LED lighting. Lehtonen believes LED outdoor lighting is on the rise with vast future growth potential, hence prompting the company to expand into outdoor lighting. The Fin came to the show to look for LED outdoor lighting suppliers.

Jordi Ramentol Bonamusa, commerce director of Barcelona-based Luximport, S.A, was a first-time visitor to the show, having planned to buy energy-saving products like LED lamps. He advised the organizers to invite more multinational suppliers, despite the good quality products.

Seminars Highlighting New Trends

To add an educational dimension, the organizer arranged several seminars, including the “2013 Taiwan Solid State Lighting” (TSSL 2013), organized by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to share the latest in LED lighting and global market trends, also examining high value applications driving cross-sector cooperation to help the industry tap opportunities in innovative applied research and development.

The ITRI said that upstream, mid- and downstream sectors of LED-associated industries are steadily growing globally, driving growths in cross-sector partnerships in screen displays, automotive, medical, agricultural, fishery, animal husbandry, biotechnology applications.

The ITRI also said that the development of innovative epitaxial technology is key to accelerating high efficiency and low cost and reaching the goal of popularizing LED use.

CIE Taiwan, Taiwan branch of International Commission on Illumination—also known as the CIE in French, held its annual meeting during the show. Established in 2010 as a member of the international institute, CIE Taiwan focuses on worldwide cooperation and exchange of information on all matters relating to the science and art of light and lighting, color and vision, photobiology and image technology.

The “Cross-Strait Lighting Industrial Development on Technology Standard Forum” was another seminar held to explore potential for cross-straits cooperation among lighting companies, with experts discussing how to set cross-straits standards for new-generation lighting.

Innovation Pavilions Inspiring Creativity
The TILS continued to run the “Innovative Product Pavilion” in which the 10 finalists and award winners selected from the Innovation Award competition were displayed. The show organizer said that all the products displayed show innovation, marketing, energy-saving, and safety characteristics.

In addition, the organizers added a new “LED Lighting Innovative Application Pavilion” for the first time which showed lighting furniture and paper lantern created by students of Ming Chi University of Technology. The “Glowtesque” is a cement-made shelf with inlaid LED bulbs designed to add warmth to concrete surfaces. The “Waterweed Desk Lamp” is a small desk-top aquarium doubling as aquarium and desk light. Meanwhile, the lighting system for underground parking lots created by students of the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology was another attention-getter.

Table 1
2013 TILS exhibitor statistics

	Exhibitor number			Booth number
	2011	2012	2013	2011	2012	2013
Domestic	258	296	299	623	749	734
International	4	4	1	5	9	2
Cross-straits area	/	13	22	/	15	34
Media area	4	8	11	6	9	16
Total	266	321	333	634	782	786

Table 2
2013 TILS visitor statistics

Category	Visitor number
	2011	2012	2013(estimated)
International	1,058	1,091	1,300
Domestic	17,481	14,355	18,000
Media	138	172	200
Total	18,677	15,618	19,500