In early 2009, after Samsung invested a large budget in promoting the new concept of LED TV, the market witnessed a surge in the replacement of new generation television. According to LEDinside’s latest market trend report, the total shipment of LED-backlit TVs in 2009 was about 3.5 million sets. Of that, Samsung was on the top with more than 70% share; followed by Sharp and LG. Notably, in the first wave of LED-backlit TV competition, shipment ratio of the two Korean companies accounted for 80% of the total.

The Taiwan-based LED chipmakers, Epistar Corp. and Formosa Epitaxy Inc., have both decided to expand their LED chip outputs to ease the supply deficiency caused by strong need for LEDs from major LCD TV manufacturers, according to Taiwan Economic News.