July 24, 2009
LED light bulbs, the future is looking bright
| Competition among electrical appliance manufacturers for a share of the household light-emitting diode (LED) market is heating up. Light bulbs that use LED technology save more energy and have a longer lifetime than conventional incandescent lights. LED’s are receiving more attention from the industry and are viewed as one of the key products to provide energy efficient next-generation lighting while raising environmental awareness. Following Sharp Corp.'s entry into the LED light bulb market with their product priced at retail for about 4,000 yen ($40 US dollars), Toshiba Lighting & Technology Corp. released new LED light bulbs priced at less than 5,000 yen ($50 US dollars). This is 50 percent lower than its previous offerings last March. The competition may spur firms to accelerate LED price cuts, leading to a rapid expansion of the LED market. LED light bulbs last 40 times longer than standard filament light bulbs of the same brightness, and six to seven times longer than bulb-shaped fluorescent lights. LED’s are being used in industrial products like traffic signals, but its relatively high value (10,000 yen ($100 US dollars) per bulb) slowed the progression of its popularity. The rapid pace of technological development in recent years has lowered costs and consumers are able to purchase LED bulbs at more reasonable prices. Thus, economists predict LED light bulbs will take an increased share of the home-use lighting market. Fuji Keizai Co. Ltd., a leading marketing research company in Japan, estimates the domestic market for LED bulbs jumping tenfold in 5 years from 2007 and the share in the total light bulb market to increase to over 11% from the current 2 to 3 percent. Electrical appliance manufacturers have announced they will cease producing filament light bulbs by 2012 following a request from the government that manufacturers promote energy-saving products. |
