Favourable Government Policies Drive the Global LED Lighting Market

LED, the technology that until recently provided backlight for flat panel television sets, mobile phones, tablet PCs, among others, is all set to dominate the global lighting market in the next few years. Key benefits of LED bulbs that are driving its mass adoption include lesser consumption of power, longer lifespan and lower environmental pollution throughout its lifecycle. Supported by stabilizing macro-economic conditions, reduced prices and favourable industry standards, the market is fully set to enter the era of a golden period beginning from 2014. Despite their current dominance, fluorescent lamps are soon expected to give way to the rapidly growing popularity of LEDs. The pressing need around the world for conserving energy encourages the natural shift to LEDs. LED Bulbs enjoy greater adoption rates in countries where power costs are high. In countries where power is cheaper, penetration is expected to be relatively slower as there would be no urgency to shift to energy saving lamps.
Steady decline in average selling price, owing to shrinking manufacturing costs, will play an important role in future penetration and growth of LED lighting. LED chip prices are falling steadily resulting in close to 30% annual reductions in LED bulb pricing, transforming LEDs as an impressive general lighting choice. Demand for all LED lighting types, including LED spot lights, streetlights, luminaires, residential use light bulbs, and LED fluorescent tubes is set to increase manifold in the next few years.
Government policies banning inefficient lighting technologies represent a strong growth driver for LED adoption. The Korean government announced plans to increase the share of LEDs in the nation’s lighting source mix to about 30% by 2015. The Chinese government also plans to increase LED usage while the US government phased out sales and production of the most used fluorescent bulb in the nation, the T12 bulb. Penetration of LED lighting is expected to be the fastest in outdoor and commercial lighting segments. Streetlights, spotlights and downlights are expected to witness high adoption of LED lighting in the next few years. Street lighting enjoys immense support from favourable government policies and by the end of 2015, LED penetration for streetlights is expected to reach more than 90%.
LED fluorescent tubes are all set to witness increased adoption riding on the feature of significant power savings of up to 50%. Particularly, the tubes will find increased usage in such applications where electricity is a major expenditure. Organic LEDs (OLEDs) represent one of the most important future growth areas for the LED industry. However, this much awaited technology is still in development stages for general lighting and its current use is limited to monitors, televisions and smartphone displays. Home automation represents another potential growth driver for LED lighting, where the technology is making the automation process easier and faster by incorporating personalized lighting in automated smart homes in an economical manner.
As stated by the new market research report on LED Lighting, Asia-Pacific represents the largest as well as the fastest growing market worldwide, driven primarily by China. Other major markets include the Europe, the United States and Japan. China represents one of the largest markets for all types of lighting including LED lighting mainly because of its huge population and a fast growing economy. The country is expected to witness accelerated LED adoption supported by government policies. China is also expected to subsidize LEDs to become the leading producer. Beijing has already set a goal of achieving 30% LED penetration in general lighting by 2015.
Major players covered in the report include Acuity Brands Inc., Bulbrite Industries Inc., Cree Inc., Crompton Greaves Ltd., Dialight plc, Feit Electric Company, General Electric Company, Havells India Limited, Koninklijke (Royal) Philips Electronics N.V., Larson Electronics LLC, LG Electronics, Lighting Science Group Corporation, Litetronics International Inc., Megaman, NVC Lighting Technology Corporation, OSRAM GmbH, Panasonic Corporation, Revolution Lighting Technologies Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sharp Corporation, Standard Products Inc., Toshiba Corporation, Ultra LEDs Limited and Zumtobel Group.