TrendForce Sees Opportunities in Light Tubes and Troffer/Panel Lights as Commercial LED Lighting Market Expands

The scale of the global market for commercial LED lighting continues to grow with the development outlook for light tubes and troffer/panel lights very positive, says LEDinside, a division of TrendForce. The latest analysis by LEDinside in its Silver Member Report: Commercial Lighting Sector’s Light Tubes and Integrated Luminaires estimates that the scale of the global market for all LED lighting products will reach US$25.65 billion in 2015. And within this market, the light tube and troffer/panel lights will make up US$3.44 billion and US$450 million respectively. Both categories are currently seeing stable market growth. 

“The shipments of light tubes and integrated commercial luminaires grew significantly in 2014 versus 2013,” said Joanne Wu, assistant research manager at LEDinside. “Consequently, prices fell rapidly for these products and in turn affected the willingness to promote them in the retail channels.” 

Wu, however, added that the situation will improve considerably in 2015: “The main reason for optimism is that the cost structure for light tube products will stabilize, and the steady progress in the standardization of these products will improve sales and lower risks of inventory surplus.” 

U.S. is moving towards smart LED lighting and light communication while Japan favors high-efficiency products 

Major American lighting companies are currently engaged in an aggressive expansion of the LED lighting market. They are continuously raising the penetration rate of LED lighting by launching many new products. The direction of the application development is moving towards smart lighting, light communication, and other emerging fields. LEDinside forecasts the scale of the entire U.S. LED lighting market in 2015 will amount to US$5.33 billion, and the combined percentage share of light tube and troffer/panel light products will be around 14.3%. 

As for Japan, the consumer preference is towards high-efficiency products, and the Japanese lighting companies are launching products with low-power drivers, hoping they will tap into the energy-saving demand. The drawback of these products is the high prices since they use more LED packages to meet their luminous flux standards. Wu noted that Japan’s commercial lighting market offers a lot of flexibility in LED lighting solutions besides high-efficiency light tubes and luminaires. For example, LED technology that achieves a high color rendering index value and wireless control can be applied to luminaire design. It is then possible to create an advanced concept lighting system that can adjust the brightness and color of a hundred or more luminaires at once, thus saving more energy. In sum, high-efficiency LED has a wide-range of applications in Japan’s commercial lighting sector. Currently, Japanese companies that produce light tubes and integrated luminaires of the high-efficiency type include Panasonic, Toshiba, Endo Lighting, and Iris Ohyama. 

The recovery of Eurozone boosts the consumer confidence of European consumers as well as the demands in the lighting market. Based on LEDinside’s projection, the scale of Europe’s LED lighting market will reach US$5.5 billion. Due to the depreciation of the euro and logistics costs, European lighting companies have begun to keep manufacturing in their countries or outsource it to their eastern neighbors, such as Poland. This “Made in Europe” trend has also helped the local vendors to expand overseas by spurring their export sales. On the other hand, the euro’s fall has been squeezing the profits of Asian OEMs as their European clients demand greater price reduction. Some Asian lighting manufacturers have started to promote their own brand products in order to offset the effects of the price cuts and reduce their reliance on overseas orders.