Covid-19 Impacts on the LED Supply Chain
June 07, 2020
Coronavirus epidemic has different impacts on the supply chain in the LED industry covering upstream chip production to packaging and end consumer product manufacture.
LED wafer and chip production is less impacted by the epidemic and delay production because it still has high inventory due to oversupply in 2019. Many chip producer still have product in stock from last year to supply. However, materials for LED chips including sapphire substrate and other might become short in supply if the work delay continues. It is thus expected that LED chip price will increase after March 2020.
Compared to chip makers, LED packagers are more affected as the operation is based on intensive labor work and most of the factories. In addition, the inventory level of LED package is also lower, leading to urge needs for production resume.
As for end application products, Hubei province, where the coronavirus outbreak began, is one of the automobile production center in China and has been heavily impacted by the epidemic.
Panel and backlight module manufacture are also suffering from lack of materials due to delayed production. Utilization rate of panel production would slow down if materials supply does not recover soon. Moreover, the surging coronavirus cases in South Korea might also hit the panel production in the country.
Apart from production delay, many international business fairs of the industry were cancelled or postponed due the spreading coronavirus. MWC, scheduled from February 24 to 27, was cancelled by February 12. The biannual big event in the lighting industry, Light + Building, has been moved to September 27 to October 2 from its original date in March.
