HB-LED market will be worth $7 billion by 2009
by Richard Stevenson in Burlingame
The market for high-brightness LEDs grew by 37% to reach $3.7 billion in 2004. That's according to Bob Steele, who opened this year's Strategies in Light conference in Burlingame, CA.
Once again, applications in mobile terminals dominated HB-LED sales. Cell phones and their like accounted for 58% of the market ($2.15 billion), followed by 13% shares for automotive and signage applications.
According to Steele, the application of white LEDs in backlighting of full-color displays enjoyed 75% market growth in 2004. In fact, LCD backlighting overtook keypad backlighting as the biggest sector for HB-LEDs in mobile appliances, and was worth 48% of the $2.15 billion market. In 2003, LCD backlights had represented 42% of this market.
Keypad backlights represented 38% of the mobile appliance market for HB-LEDs in 2004, down from a 45% share in the previous year.
In automotive applications, center high-mounted stop lamps continued to show modest growth. European sales of these products are now beginning to saturate, with an estimated market penetration of more than 80 percent.
Steele believes that in 2004 the largest growth in epitaxy and chip processing activity took place in Asia. However, he also noted that overcapacity in the region has led to severe price pressure, especially in low- to mid-range applications such as keypad backlights.
Looking ahead, Steele predicted that the HB-LED market would nearly double by 2009, increasing to a value of around $7 billion. Strong though this growth is, it represents a slow-down compared with the tremendously fast expansion seen between 1999 and 2004.