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With word surfacing yet again that General Electric is preparing to sell its lighting division, LEDs Magazine has reason to believe that Chinese-owned, London-based lighting company Feilo Sylvania could step in as a new owner in some capacity, with a Hungarian connection.
As LEDs has mentioned several times over the last couple of years (here, for example), GE appears interested in selling GE Lighting, the conventional arm of its lighting business. That likelihood picked up considerable attention after the Wall Street Journal reported that GE is actively shopping the unit. LEDs' sister publication Lux was among the many publications to sensibly take note soon after the WSJ report. The symbolism of bulb inventor Thomas Edison's company jettisoning the business is noteworthy in its own right.
Cleveland-based GE Lighting handles the older portion of GE's lighting business — bulbs, for example — something it has continued to do even after GE formed its newfangled, Boston-based “Current, powered by GE” division in October 2015 to sell Internet of Things (IoT) LED lighting systems and other connected energy devices to commercial users. As everyone knows, IoT lighting and the services and data that go along with it might well represent the lighting industry's future. The future is certainly not in bulb sales — not in a world that is rapidly moving to LED light sources that purportedly last for decades and deprive the industry of its longtime business model of selling replacements every 18 months or so.
So how do we get from that reality to a GE, Feilo Sylvania, and Hungarian connection?
By connecting the dots.
One of the most important outposts in GE Lighting is Hungary, which houses GE bulb factories, and where Budapest serves as the hub for GE Lighting's Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) operations. GE Lighting's website currently lists seven factories in the country making bulbs, components, fixtures, wires, glass, ceramics, filaments, machinery, and other things. One of the plants, in the city of Nagykanizsa, made headlines for hitting a milestone in LED production two years ago.
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