Osram announced the plan to realign its partnership with Continental and return their joint venture business to the parent company. The information was released soon after Osram reported its transfer progress with ams, indicating that the company is speeding up transformation within the organization.

Osram and Continental will negotiate on separating of the business in smart automotive lighting systems and returning it to the respective companies. The German companies noted that the decision was made in response to the gloomy market environment, which is being further impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. They plan to complete the negotiations on returning the businesses by the end of this year. It was addressed that existing customer relationships will remain unaffected and orders placed as well as commitments made will be fulfilled.

Osram and Continental set up the joint venture in July 2018 focusing on LED-based automotive lighting modules. However, since Osram turned its focus on non-lighting photonic and optical technologies and was acquired by ams, it has been through a continuous transformation to exit other businesses including automotive lighting module manufacture. As a result, Osram is now parting Continental to pave the way to concentrate on optical technologies.

ams aims to leverage the opto semiconductor technologies of Osram to expand its business in sensing and automotive application. In the future, ams will be in charge of mobile business, and Osram will be fully responsible for automotive business, in order to utilize strengths from both parties.

Osram’s expertise in sensing components such as VCSEL, automotive LEDs and LiDAR laser (EEL) will support ams’ plan to intensify its position in the automotive field and markets other than mobile devices.

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