The year 2016 has so far been turbulent for the LED general lightin industry. Continuing decline in prices, thorough restructurings as implemented by top global brands and the closing of numerous small and middle sized enterprises (SME) in China are only some of the trends which have shaken the industry. Grave decisions as made by Osram and Philps indicate the industry’s challenges and future developments. 

An ever growing world population will certainly lead to an increased or at least stable demand of LED lighting worldwide, particularly given the fact that the governments of big emerging markets such as India, Egypt and African countries are following ambitious projects to introduce LED general lighting. However, fierce price battles will keep profit margins low and the prolonged life-span of LED products is likely to limit the the resale-rates in the long-term.

 

 

As top global brands have shown, the answer to this inevitable trend will be a higher sophistication in terms of product development, marketing strategies and profitability considerations. Such blue ocean strategies will make it necessary for manufacturers and traders to go new ways and think outside the box. New marketing strategies, particularly the focus on new potential customers and markets as well as new cost-value offers for potential customers will play a key role. 

The industry’s perspectives are still promising and also the constant price decline will not continue ad infinitum. As various pundits forecast there will no more room left for significant price regressions by the year 2020. New fields of activities such as UV-LED and IR-LED lighting and speciality lighing are currently emerging and offer further opportunities for savvy manufacturers. Sm.