Lighting LED Market Will Overcome Backlight LED in 2014

Although LED is the protagonist of the new generation of lighting, the proportion of the mainstream lighting market is still very small, and LED is still mainly used for backlighting applications. However, this situation is likely to change in the next few years. According to DisplaySearch’s predictions for the LED market at the 21st DisplaySearch Forum, the demand for lighting LEDs has been almost equal to that of backlight LEDs and will exceed that of backlight LEDs in 2014. Leo Liuu, senior analyst of DisplaySearchTaiwan LED, said that in 2011 LED demand, the lighting LED is 13.592 billion, and the backlight LED is 45.869 billion, the gap between the two is about 3.4 times. In 2014, the demand for lighting LEDs and backlight LEDs will reach 5,858,800 and 50,743 million, respectively, and the market demand for LED lighting will surpass that of backlight LEDs.

It is understood that the reason that lighting LED demand exceeds the backlight LED is mainly the gradual popularity of LED lighting, and the number of LEDs used in the backlight of each LCD panel device is reduced. LCD TVs, liquid crystal displays, and other products that use large-size LCD panels are currently the driving force in the backlight LED market. Due to factors such as higher LED brightness and lower product cost, the number of LEDs in these products will be less and less.

In a device using a large-sized liquid crystal panel, the current LED backlight has reached a stage of popularization. Therefore, even if the number of LEDs used in each product is reduced, the number of products is still increasing, so the demand for LEDs in the entire market continues to expand. However, after the popularity of LED backlighting has reached a certain level, it is difficult to rely on the increase in the number of products to make up for the decreasing use of LED backlights. Therefore, LED demand will gradually slow down. DisplaySearch predicts that backlight LED demand will reach the highest point in 2013 and then gradually decrease.

DisplaySearch believes that the popularity of LED lighting will continue for some time, so demand will continue to increase. It is understood that in 2011 LED lighting products accounted for only 1.9% of all lighting. Even in 2014, lighting LED demand surpassed the backlight LED, but its proportion accounted for only 9.3% of the lighting market, so the future growth space is still large.