On July 30, Philips Lumileds announced signing distribution agreements with Macnica/Clavis Company and Marubeni Metals in Japan, in order to expand product availability and speed time-to-market of LED lighting solutions. The two new agreements enable immediate access to Philips Lumileds application-specific LEDs in Japan.

"Our new distribution partners will have full access to the products, services and people at Philips Lumileds," said Pierre-Yves Lesaicherre, CEO Philips Lumileds. "Macnica/Clavis Company and Marubeni Metals are now able to provide their customer base with access to the world's most comprehensive portfolio of application-specific LED solutions. Philips Lumileds is adding these market leaders to our distribution portfolio, further demonstrating our total commitment to the success of our customers."

"We are very pleased to partner with Philips Lumileds and excited to add their world class LED products in our line card," said Jun Ikeda, Clavis Company President. "We expect that we can further expand business in rapidly growing illumination market here in Japan by offering their cutting-edge LED products with our wide range of driver portfolio."

"I would like to express my profound gratitude to Philips Lumileds for supporting Marubeni", said Shinji Shindo, President of Marubeni Metals Corporation. "To become an official distributor is truly a new stage for our future relationship and I am very excited for the fact that we able to handle the entirety of Philips Lumileds products from LED chips to modules shall definitely expand our customer base."