Author:
Ryan Sanderson, IHS
Date
04/30/2014
PDF
In 2013 LED lamps and luminaires accounted for just 2% of the global lighting installed base. Collectively incandescent and fluorescent lamps and luminaires still accounted for 80% of total shipments, with CFL and HID technologies accounting for the remainder. With legislation which inhibits the use of incandescent lamps in some countries already and a continued drive to decrease power consumption from lighting on a global scale, this is set to change. In 2018 20% of the installed base is forecast to be accounted for by LED technology. This rapid increase is not only predicted to drive opportunities for LED lamp and luminaire manufacturers but also power supply manufacturers who provide the electronics required to drive the LED lighting solutions.
The market for power supplies (driver circuits) for LED lamps is already very competitive and average selling prices of both LED lamps and their associated power supplies have declined rapidly in the last five years. Annual shipments of LED lamps, however, are forecast to more than double from 2013 to 2014 to over 1 billion and continue to grow rapidly to more than 2.5 billion in 2017. The market for power supplies (driver circuits) for LED lamps is forecast to more than double in 2014 to $1.8 billion and grow to $3.4 billion in 2017. This market is therefore very attractive to power supply manufacturers with a “low-cost, high volume” business model.
The majority of this growth is predicted to be driven by demand in the residential sector as consumers replace incandescent and fluorescent lamps with LED lamps. The main benefits of transitioning to LED lamps are that they can produce the same lumen output at a much lower input power. This means that the power required to light a room/house is lower and the consumer’s utility bills are therefore lower. Under optimal operating conditions, LED lamps also last at least five times longer before replacement is required.
Designs of LED luminaires compared with LED lamps are more complex, typically require a greater number of LEDs/LED lamps, have a higher power rating and are therefore more expensive. Annual shipments of LED luminaires are much lower than for LED lamps with just 40 million shipped in 2013. This is predicted to grow by 60% in 2014 and to more than quadruple in 2017.
Power supplies for LED luminaires are also more complex than those for LED lamps and are therefore also more expensive. Although the number of units shipped each year is much lower than those for LED lamps, the revenue opportunity remains attractive. The market is forecast to more than triple from 2013 to 2017 to be worth $3.5 billion.
As with LED lamps, the main market growth driver is cost savings from lower energy usage. The longer life expectancy of LED luminaires compared with luminaires which use alternative lighting technologies is also extremely important in applications where there is typically a cost of labour to replace the luminaire. For this reason, strongest growth is forecast to be driven by commercial/retail and bay/industrial sectors due to the costs associated for lighting buildings, in some cases for 24 hours per day, and the costs of labour for replacing luminaires. Despite the higher initial cost of transitioning to LED luminaires, in these sectors savings can be realized in as little as 12 to 18 months.
