Experts comment on the development status of LED segment market

On September 8, 2012, the “2012 Northeast Asia Semiconductor Lighting Technology and Application Innovation Forum” was held in Changchun International Conference Center with the theme of “Optimizing LED lighting industry layout and realizing leap-forward development”. As one of the theme activities of the 8th Northeast Asia Trade Expo, this forum attracted more than 200 experts and scholars from the semiconductor lighting industry from all over the country to actively participate. The forum mainly discussed the status quo and problems of semiconductor lighting industry development, technology development and new applications, and related standards development.

Zhou Xuejun, Marketing Director of Asia for Philips Lumileds Lighting Company, gave a speech titled “The Current Status and Trends of Semiconductor Lighting Global Market Development”. He elaborated on the current development status of major LED market segments, including subdivided areas such as alternative light bulbs, outdoor applications, retail and hotel applications, and office applications, as well as the performance and progress of major regions in the segment.

According to StrategiesUnlimited statistics, in 2010, the market penetration of HBLED in the general lighting industry was only 7%, and the backlight and mobile electronic penetration exceeded 25%. In the future, there is still much room for market growth. It is expected that the LED penetration rate in the general lighting market is expected to reach 43% within five years. Philips Lighting's forecast for this is more optimistic. It is expected that 45% will be achieved in 2015. Zhou Xuejun said that the first wave of promoting large-scale LED applications is landscape lighting, the second wave is shopping mall and hotel lighting, the third wave is the application of LED replacement light bulbs, and the next will be office and industrial lighting applications, but now Looking at the application advantages of LED in the office area is not as obvious as in other fields. Further price reduction will greatly promote its application in the office sector. The mid-power LED has a significant advantage in terms of price, because its lm/$ indicator has a very bright performance.

LED replacement lamp market, the most prominent in Japan, the current market penetration rate of up to 50%, but now the Japanese market has also emerged some new problems. Because LED replacement lamp life is very long, after the application of LED lamps, the replacement cycle is significantly lengthened, which obviously has a great impact on the follow-up market, and put forward new challenges for the existing channels, distribution, and even manufacturing. This market confusion caused by the advantages of LED is worthy of consideration by every colleague.

The most important indicator for outdoor applications is the return on investment. At present, the indicator has been shortened from 5-7 years to 2-4 years, which has a far-reaching impact on the development of LED outdoor lighting market. In addition, road lighting currently has a color rendering index of LED luminaires that is generally required to be above 70. Zhou Xuejun expressed reservations about this because outdoor lighting and interior lighting are very different. It is more meaning-oriented than color pursuit. The degree of reduction, and a high CRI must mean sacrifice of light efficiency. In color temperature, a large number of studies have shown that, compared with high color temperature, low color temperature (about 4000k) is now more recognized and accepted by more regions, with the improvement of warm light LED light efficiency, which will also be the future development trend.

Retail stores and hotel applications have their own particularities. They put forward higher requirements for light quality related indicators, such as color rendering, color difference at different times and angles, and so on. The penetration rate of LEDs in this application area is also increasing year by year, only 9% in 2011, and is expected to reach 43% in 2015.

Office applications are areas with broad prospects and infiltration is not yet optimistic. In this field, LED lighting major competitors are T5, T8 lamps and other products. It is required that LED lamps have superior performance in terms of luminous efficiency, color rendering, light quality, and light safety.

Finally, Zhou Xuejun stated that the lighting market is a complex, decentralized and diversified market. Different markets have different requirements for LED lighting and need to provide different and specific solutions. However, the light quality, Lm/$, and Lm/W are still the core requirements that drive the development of the LED lighting industry. The first wave of LED revolution has ended, and the problem we now face is how to penetrate LEDs into all lighting fields and provide suitable solutions for these fields.