Taiwan’s major power-supply makers branching out into LED lighting manufacturing, including Delta Electronics Inc., AcBel Polytech Inc., Phihong Technology Co., and Leader Electronics Inc., estimate sales of their LED lamps to take off in 2012.

They made the prediction based on the bright growth forecast mostly on the implementation of bans on incandescent bulb consumption beginning this year in many advanced economies, mainland China’s new round of subsidization on LED lighting estimated to begin this year, and LED replacements for 40W incandescent bulbs dropping below US$10 in retail price in South Korea.

As the lamps operate on power converters and transformers, which are crucial devices in power supplies, LED lighting has become a new revenue source for Taiwan’s power-supply makers.

For example, Delta has benefited many contracts to supply LED streetlights from Taiwan and mainland China. In addition, its LED light bulbs are now available in Europe and Japan. It estimates the revenue from LED lighting sales to double to US$50 million this year from 2011. AcBel has also acquired LED streetlights contracts in several of the mainland’s LED-streetlight demonstration projects, as well as has landed contracts to supply Japanese retailers LED light bulbs.