The light emitting diode LED industry now offers a variety of opportunities for small and medium enterprises SMEs to enter the business at a capital cost of as low as RM1.5mil.
Bizwise Sdn Bhd managing director C.L. Yoon said that until about five years ago, the LED industry did not provide much opportunities for SMEs because the technology then did not permit LEDs to achieve high brightness and be used outside the display industry LED brightness then was about 40 lumens per watt compared with 130 lumens per watt currently
Furthermore, the display industry had a high capital barrier entry for SMEs. With the rapid improvement made in LED lighting technology, LEDs can now be used as general lighting, and it is becoming increasingly popular.
This development allows many fresh opportunities for SMEs to venture into the LED industry to provide downstream solutions such as the designing and manufacturing of the housing, fixtures, bulbs, and electronics circuitry for the LED lighting industry.
The capital outlay required for entering into this market is also not that high, Yoon told StarBiz after moderating a talk on the potential of LEDs.
The talk was attended by investPenang executive committee chairman Datuk Lee Kah Choon.
The global consumption of LEDs this year is expected to be worth about US$7bil compared with about US$5bil in 2009.
The spending on LED lighting is expected to hit about US$13bil in 2013, Yoon said. Multinational corporations MNCs are willing to share the technological know-how with SMEs in Penang on how to design and develop the fixtures, electronics circuitry, heat sinks, and optics for LED lighting.
Once SMEs have the capabilities, MNCs can work with them to produce downstream solutions which the SMEs can then market on their own, he said.
Lee said the Smart Centre in investPenang, which was set up as an incubator for SMEs, could also research on the needs of MNCs in Penang involved in the LED lighting industry.
The findings could then serve as a platform for investPenang to matchmake the business interest of SMEs with the needs of the MNCs, Lee said.
