TrendForce: 2018 Automotive-Use LED Market Value to Reach US$ 2.5 billion

LED lighting has entered the state of cutthroat battlefield, and manufacturers are seeking new Blue Ocean Strategy. LED automotive lighting has a relatively higher gross margin compared with other traditional LED applications, attracting many Taiwanese LED makers to start planning to enter the automotive-use LED lighting field. Duff Lu, research manager at LEDinside, a research division of TrendForce, indicates that even though automotive-use LED certification periods are long and the entry barrier for entering the supply chain is high, but its overall market revenue from 2014-2018 has a compounded growth rate of 9%. In particular, the daytime running lamp (DRL) and high-low beam headlights (H/L Beam) have compounded annual production values of 21% and 48% respectively; they are two major production applications to be watched. 

LED sees steady growth in overall vehicle lighting application 

The current demands for headlight designs are gradually moving towards aesthetics demands such as smaller sizes and variety in designs. Lighting source is also gradually shifting from traditional light bulbs to LED. “The worldwide automotive-use LED market (combination of before market and after market) is projected to reach US$ 2.5 billion by 2018, with a compounded growth rate of 9% from 2014-2018. In particular the automotive LED market value in before market is projected to reach US$1.9 billion and the automotive LED market value in after market is also forecasted to reach US$620 million,” added Lu. 

H/L Beam see stunning growth in automotive LED segment 

Automotive-use LED marketing presents steady developments, in particular, DRL and H/L Beam growth are the most impressive. These can be attributed to the high-efficiency LED technology advancements. Following the falling LED prices, the automotive-use LED lightings are gradually migrating from the premium to the medium priced car models.  LEDinside projects that automotive LED market value in the H/L beam and fog light applications will reach US$313 million by 2018, with a compounded growth rate of 48% from 2014 to 2018. 

Automotive-use LED market value in Panel Application​ is gradually reaching the growing phase 

With the rapid growth in demand for GPS, dashboard and other vehicle-use panels, LEDinside forecasts that the automotive LED market value in panel application will also grow from US$ 71 million in 2014 to US$130 million by 2018. Lu indicates that in 2014, worldwide new vehicles with standard equipment included automotive-use panels, have already reached 9%, and is expected to hit 14% by 2018. Given the gradual decline of traditional IT backlight, automotive-use panel’s backlights will become an inevitable battleground amount LED makers.