CREE recently announced the appointment of Daniel Castillo as president of the new lighting business, and Castillo is responsible for CREE's commercial and consumer lighting business, reporting directly to CEO Chuck Swoboda.
Castillo was previously a senior vice president at Eaton, and previously served as head of lighting for Cooper and GE. Castillo has 25 years of experience in multinational companies. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Florida International University and an MBA from Columbia University.
“We have achieved good results in the LED lighting business, and the addition of Castillo will bring more industry experience and mature business leadership to help us take it to the next level,†said Chuck Swoboda.
Castillo said that he looks forward to working with CREE's lighting business team to provide customers with more valuable products and services.
CREE's stock has not been satisfactory to investors in the past year. The data shows that CREE's return over the past year has increased to -1.62%, while the S&P 500's return has increased by 7.32%.
The data shows that the negative rate of return growth is mainly due to CREE's consumer lighting business revenue did not meet expectations, and the growth of power and RF business slowed down. In order to return the LED lighting business to the growth channel, CREE has launched a series of new consumer lighting products.
CREE bet on LED lighting products due to a recent report released by the US Department of Energy. The report shows that LED lighting will account for 84% of the total general lighting market share in 2030.
This is why, after the traditional chip business was blocked, CREE turned its hopes on the increasingly bullish LED lighting business.
In recent years, the competition in the LED lighting market has become increasingly fierce. CREE faces competition from traditional lighting giants such as Philips and Osram, as well as other LED device companies such as Samsung and Nichia.
After the decline in lighting products revenue in the previous fiscal year, total revenue for CREE in fiscal 2016 was $1.62 billion, a decrease of 1% compared to fiscal 2015. The 2016 fiscal year (GAAP) net loss was $22 million.
For CREE, there are also challenges from the rapid changes in the Chinese market.
At the moment when Chinese local chip companies such as Sanan and Huacan are catching up, the CREE, which was once running at high speed, is hard to get rid of the dilemma of slowing growth. What's more, the device business of Philips and Osram is sending out information about finding buyers.
What is more challenging is that in recent years, China's local LED companies have set off a wave of overseas acquisitions. This is likely to bring greater challenges to many multinational companies that have the advantages of technology, patents and overseas channels.
“Taking street lamps as an example, two or three years ago, streetlight companies generally designated devices using foreign brands such as Philips and CREE, but now local companies such as Sanan and Huacan have already integrated with these international brands in terms of product technology. Price advantage." An industry source said.
Recently, Cui China Business General Manager and Technical Director Shao Jiaping joined Osram Opto Semiconductors as the head of general lighting business sales in Greater China on September 15, 2016. According to informed sources close to CREE, the new head of China is not yet in place.
CREE hopes to focus on the development of innovative LED lighting products to fight a long-term battle and maintain its position in the industry.
In the past few years, thanks to the adjustment of product strategy, CREE Lighting has continued to develop in the North American market and has gradually gained market recognition.
"CREE has the title of price killer in the United States. Its LED lighting products are always the first to cut prices. It has already broken through the blockade of traditional lighting giants such as Philips, Osram, GE, etc. It is developing very rapidly." Chairman of the Incentive Testing Center familiar with the North American lighting market. Nie Pengxiang told Gaogong LED.
This is visible from CREE's sale of its power and RF business subsidiary Wolfspeed.
Cree's Wolfspeed was included in Infineon's six months after the announcement of the listing plan. The acquisition also includes the related silicon carbide wafer substrate business for power and RF power devices. The purchase price for this all-cash transaction was $850 million (about 740 million euros).
Chuck Swoboda said: "The sale of wolfspeed to Infineon can quickly become a company that is more focused on LED lighting and provides an important resource for accelerating our growth."
Wolfspeed is one of the leading suppliers of silicon carbide power devices and silicon carbide based GaN RF power solutions. Its core competencies include the manufacture of silicon carbide wafer substrates and the fabrication of silicon carbide wafer substrates for RF power devices, including single crystal gallium nitride layers.
In addition to the general lighting business, in the field of traditional packaging devices, CREE is also increasing its business diversified layout to adapt to market changes.
Recently, CREE announced the launch of new XLamp®xq-e and XP-E high efficiency red LEDs for plant lighting applications.
Compared with the closest peer products, the output is similar, and the size is only 1/3. XQ-E Photo Red LEDs expand the range of small-sized LED devices optimized for plant lighting, helping lighting manufacturers reduce lamp size and system cost.
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