According to a new report from IMS Research, now part of IHS Inc, the market for LED driver ICs in LED lighting increase from $214 million in 2012 to $323 million this year. This will allow the LED market for lighting to exceed that of cell phones, which will have revenue of $316 million.
Unit shipments of LED driver ICs this year will continue to favor mobile handsets with 1.5 billion units, versus 1.1 billion for LED lighting. However, in 2014 lighting is expected to exceed mobile as the volume shipment leader with 1.9 billion, compared to 1.7 billion for cell phone LEDs.
Revenue will continue to grow for LED lighting for the next few years heading to $519 million in 2014 and $666 million in 2015 on its way to $810.3 million by 2018.
LEDs are used in mobile phones for display and keypad backlighting, while the demand for LEDs in mobile handsets is being somewhat dampened by the rise of OLED displays—which do not require a LED for backlighting. More recently, LEDs have been adopted by phone manufacturers for flash photography capabilities, which will drive shipments from 1.3 billion in 2012 up to 2.2 billion units by 2018.
From an overall perspective, the percentage of total LED driver IC revenue derived from cell phones will decline from 27% in 2012 to 20% by 2018. But despite all of this, LEDs in mobile handsets will still be an important part for manufacturers.
