As part of its significant expansion in Asia announced last Fall, Veeco Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: VECO), today officially opened its new China Training Center (CTC) in Shanghai in order to better support the rapid growth of the LED industry and the needs of its customers. The official grand opening featured the attendance of many honored guests, including several of Veeco's key Chinese LED customers and important local government officials.
At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, John R. Peeler, Veeco's Chief Executive Officer, commented, "China is making an enormous investment to become a world leading manufacturer of LED, both for its own domestic consumption and to export. In fact, China has stated targets to convert 30% of the domestic lighting market to LEDs by 2015. China represented nearly 30% of Veeco's 2010 revenue, or $267 million, up from $30 million in 2009, and Chinese companies will potentially represent over half of our $1 billion-plus revenue forecasted for 2011. We shipped MOCVD tools to 20 customers last year, including existing LED manufacturers, joint venture companies as well as some new start-up enterprises. We are excited to be opening our new Shanghai customer training and support center to support this explosive growth and strengthen our leadership position in China."
Peter Collingwood, Veeco's Senior Vice President, Sales & Service, added, "Many of our customers are building or significantly expanding factories, often in new "LED/green energy" parks. Our training center in Shanghai was therefore developed specifically to help our Chinese customers "go faster' to ramp production of LEDs."
The CTC site, about 1700 square meters in size and housing approximately 40 Veeco employees, is equipped with three classrooms as well as Veeco's market leading TurboDisc(R) K465i(TM) MOCVD system. Training will include TurboDisc MOCVD system introduction, epitaxial process characterization, and more advanced hands-on training classes in hardware maintenance and trouble-shooting.
Justin Wang, General Manager, Veeco Greater China region, added, "This training center is the first of its kind to be established for the LED industry in China. Our goal is to train hundreds of engineers to use our MOCVD tools in the next 12 months."
According to Mr. Peeler, "Veeco will invest over $30 million in 2011 to dramatically expand its Asia footprint to help customers continue to accelerate the pace of adoption of LEDs for consumer electronics and solid-state lighting, including additional new R&D/demo and process support sites in Hsinchu, Taiwan (opening in August) and Seoul, Korea (opening early 2012)."