LG Innotek to scale up vehicle lighting module business

[Courtesy of LG Innotek Co.]

LG Innotek Co., an electronics parts manufacturer under South Korea’s LG Group, has vowed to grow its automotive lighting module business to the trillion-won level.

The company plans to expand its presence in the electronic car parts market with Nexlide, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary of commercialization.

LG Innotek on Monday announced plans to achieve 1 trillion won ($730 million) in revenue from the vehicle lighting module business.

Leveraging its technological competitiveness, the company aims to target global markets including North America, Europe, and Asia.

Market watchers forecast that LG Innotek will achieve this goal within five years.

The revenue share of vehicle lighting modules in LG Innotek’s overall automotive business is reported to be 15 percent.

Last year, the company recorded sales of 1.57 trillion won in its car electronics business, suggesting that the company secured 235.2 billion won in revenue from vehicle lighting modules.

The company demonstrated the Nexlide at the Consumer Electronics Show in the United States in January, underscoring its special interest in the lighting module business.

Nexlide, introduced by LG Innotek in 2014, is a vehicle lighting module. It is a product that applies the company’s unique micro-optical pattern technology by attaching light source packages and optical resin to a thin substrate.

It is installed in 88 vehicle models from 9 domestic and international car brands, and it had received 146 orders as of April.

Over the past 10 years, sales have grown at an annual average of 47 percent.

The latest model, Nexlide M, has reduced thickness to 8mm, which is 30 percent lower than the previous product.

This has been achieved through a new manufacturing method to completely eliminate the air layer inside the lighting.

Despite minimizing module thickness, it succeeded in increasing brightness by more than four times compared to existing products. This has also significantly reduced power consumption.

Particularly, as it can reduce the power consumption of electric vehicles, there is a growing demand from electric vehicle manufacturers.

LG Innotek plans to develop next-generation products with improved energy efficiency to expand its customer base in the low- to mid-priced electric vehicle OEM sector by next year.

LG Innotek is also developing communication-enabled lighting modules as communication between drivers (V2V) and between drivers and pedestrians (V2P) is possible through messages such as STOP displayed by the lighting.

LG Innotek’s focus on the lighting module business is driven by the significant growth potential it holds alongside future vehicles.

According to market data, the vehicle lighting module market is projected to grow to $32.08 billion in 2030 from $21.9 billion in 2022.