Prices for LED light bulbs to replace 60W incandescent bulbs are expected to keep falling from an average of US$30 in November 2012 to as low as US$10 in the first half of 2013, according to Taiwan-based LED lighting makers.
The mainstream LED light bulbs in 2012 are models to replace 40W and 60W incandescent bulbs, with a global average price of US$19 and lowest price of US$7 for the former and US$30 and US$15 for the latter in November, the sources indicated. 40W- and 60W-replacement models together account for about 50% of global demand for all LED light bulbs, the sources noted. The global proportion of all types of light bulbs that are LED models will rise from 17% in 2012 to 59% in 2016, the sources cited LEDinside as indicating.
Price drops of LED light bulbs have been significantly smaller than those of LED chips because vendors have offered LED light bulbs with value-added functions such as omni-directional and dimming to reduce the impact of price competition, the sources pointed out.
Of 40W- and 60W-replacement LED light bulbs available in the global market, models offered by LG Electronics in the South Korea market had the highest lumen per unit price of 63lm/US$, followed by models launched by Samsung Electronics in the US market with 62.4lm/US$, while models launched in the Japan market by Toshiba and Sharp had the highest luminous efficiency of 86.3lm/W and 75.7lm/W respectively, according to Digitimes Research.
