Kyocera announced that it will acquire all shares in Melles Griot KK — a Japan-based manufacturer specializing in optical components which is currently a subsidiary of U.S.-based IDEX Corporation — in order to further expand its optical components business. Melles Griot KK is expected to become a wholly owned Kyocera Group company effective on Sept. 1, 2016.

The scale of China’s LED package market is projected to expand 16% year on year to RMB 61.4 billion in 2015, according to the latest Chinese LED Industry Market Report by LEDinside, a division of TrendForce. The growth of Chinese LED package market on the whole has slowed. With China being the production center of the global LED industry, the weakening of global economy this year has led to a larger slide in the exports of the country’s LED products. The year-on-year increase of Chinese LED lighting product exports for this year’s first half is 21%, a steep decline compared with the 80% year-on-year growth for the first half of 2014.

The LED industry has been engulfed in a wave of M&A as it moves into the lighting era. The past few years have been an intense restructuring period for Taiwanese LED chip manufacturers, said Chein Fen-ren, Chairman of FOREPI. The M&A wave has recently hit Chinese LED manufacturers and Chein estimates that within two to three years, Chinese manufacturers will be whittled down from the current 20-30 to only five.