The message was simple - the LED industry has successfully penetrated several niche applications, the largest of which has been the mobile handset market. However, recent growth has slowed, as this market has saturated and competition has increased. At the same time, LED technology has dramatically improved and handset volumes have allowed prices to decline, opening up new market applications such as digital billboards and signs, LCD backlighting units (BLUs), automotive interior and forward headlights, and specialty lighting. While these markets are creating sustainable business models, the desire among many of the invited speakers was to disrupt the general illumination market.
Why? Because the market for general illumination is huge. The Freedonia Group, a leading market research firm estimates the lighting market is currently around $102 billion annually, and will grow to over $130 billion by 2011. When one takes into account the longer term inherent advantages of LEDs, as James Sweeney of Stanford University outlined during his talk, “real economic value” is created in the form of a multi-billion dollar annual market – a goal embraced by suppliers, customers, designers, institutional investors and venture capitalists.
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This article was published in the February 2007 issue of LEDs Magazine.
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