General lighting has become the largest market for packaged LEDs globally for the first time according to new data presented at the recent Strategies in Light (SIL) Conference in Santa Clara, California.
Ella Shum, director of the LED practice at Strategies Unlimited, announced that solid state lighting now accounts for $3.1 billion of packaged LED sales. The overall market for LEDs (including the markets for backlighting mobile phones, monitors, signage and automotive) stands at $13.7 billion.
That means general lighting now makes up 23 per cent of the packaged LED market, pushing backlights for TVs and monitors into second place (22 per cent), mobile phones into third place (19 per cent) and signage into fourth place (13 per cent). (See graph above).
Shum suggested that Philips Lumileds and Cree were the greatest beneficiaries of a boost in sales of LEDs for general lighting (growing 21 per cent and 18 per cent respectively) while Samsung and Korean company Lumens Co benefited the most from increased production of LEDs for consumer products. Samsung’s growth in the production of LEDs stood at 22 per cent while Lumens Co enjoyed 32 per cent growth off the back of its close ties with Samsung.
The replacement lamp market grew from $2.1 billion in 2011 to $2.58 billion in 2012. The largest jump came in Japan where energy concerns caused by the earthquake and tsunami that occurred in 2011 had knocked out much of the country’s energy infrastructure.
It was also announced at the conference that the LED luminaire sector grew from $7.2 billion in 2011 to $9.2 billion in 2012. Growth in luminaires is reported to be fairly consistent across the globe.
