Economy

LED provider giant taps into China market

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2011-05-27 14:09

SHENZHEN, Guangdong -- Confident in developing more local clients, Excelitas Technologies, the United State-based optoelectronic company opened a new Light Emitting Diode (LED) center in Shenzhen.

The company, which focuses on the specialty end-markets of lighting industry such as medical lighting and clinical diagnostics, said over 10 percent of it revenues came from China.

"About 20 percent of our revenues are in Asia and half of them from China. That's why we're here - now making a commitment to increase our LED presence in China," Excelitas Technologies CEO David Nislick said last week,

The concentration of the new LED center lies in a range of research and production lines on the energy-efficient LED lighting designs from surgical and dental lighting to aerospace lighting.

"Increased domestic demand and government interest in LED technology has created significant business opportunities and an expanded market for LED-based products (in China)," said Li Min, general manager of Excelitas Technologies Shenzhen Co. Ltd.

Li said being the world's second biggest LED provider, China's LED industry is undergoing dramatic growth and has accelerated rapidly over the past few years.

According to Joel Falcone, vice president and general manager of Excelitas Technologies, the company is especially interested in finding more local clients. "Mindray, a Shenzhen-based medical company with billions annual sales and a leader in the market, looked to move from the cost-orientation to the innovative priority and came to seek us," said Falcone, added Excelitas is an expert in the field of medical lighting.

Mindray Medical International Limited, which was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2006, is now China's largest medical equipment manufacturer.

Falcone mentioned apart from searching local customers, Excelitas also showed interested in acquiring local LED companies.

"We're always actively looking for opportunities to what we called ‘inorganically grow', but you've got to be careful - there're more than 2,000 LED companies in Shenzhen alone and you don't want to pick the wrong one."

Commenting on China's LED industry, Falcone said the market could not support so many players in the field, so "around 1,900 of these 2,000 companies would end up closing". "What will happen is only the bigger player would be successful and in five years from now, there will be some very powerful Chinese LED companies for sure," he said.