Technology companies Osram and Continental have successfully completed negotiations on their joint venture, which is expected to begin operations in the second half of calendar year 2018. The joint venture, in which each of the partners has a 50 percent stake, aims to combine Continental’s and Osram’s respective expertise in lighting, light control and electronics. Leading the joint venture are CEO Dirk Linzmeier from Osram and CFO Harald Renner from Continental.
“Digitalization is creating new possibilities in automotive lighting applications and, in turn, tremendous opportunities that we want to leverage with Continental,” said Hans-Joachim Schwabe, CEO of Osram’s Specialty Lighting division. “By joining forces, we will be in an even better position to drive innovations by working closely with the automotive industry, seamlessly integrating lighting, sensor technology and electronics in a single application. This will allow us to advance new intelligent light functions, such as the combination of lighting and sensor technology in a module or light-based communication between the driver, other road users and the vehicle’s surroundings.”
Andreas Wolf, head of Continental’s Body & Security business unit, added, “The joint venture puts us in a unique position to drive technological change in the automotive lighting market and to develop intelligent lighting solutions by combining our expertise in software and electronics with Osram’s automotive lighting expertise. The innovations Osram and Continental bring to this joint venture will allow us to offer our customers an unrivaled and unprecedented portfolio in the lighting market.”
The joint venture will be based within the region of Munich, but will operate globally to ensure rapid development cycles with customers in their local areas. The U.S. operations of Osram Continental will be based in Hendersonville, Tennessee. The product portfolio will feature semiconductor-based lighting modules such as LED modules for front and rear headlights, laser modules and light control units.