An Industry Analysis of the LED Industry

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This study provides an in-depth analysis of the LED (light-emitting diode) industry based on a thorough S-C-P analysis. The LED industry is competitive due to the relatively low entry barriers, minimum product differentiation and product durability. The existence of low-price substitutes (e.g. conventional light sources) creates a price ceiling for LED products. In addition, customers are sensitive to prices. Given all these characteristics of the LED industry, we expect that price competition will become intensive when demand growth rate slows. As a result, the profit margins of the industry will be low in the long run. The current growth driver of the LED industry is large LCD display backlight. The market of the large LCD display backlight is forecasted to reach saturation by 2013. Most of the LED industry participants believe that LED general lighting will be the next growth driver for the industry. Due to the high expectation of the demand for LED lighting, LED makers expand capacity aggressively, especially in China. To develop LED industry in China, Chinese government provides subsidies to LED makers to install new MOCVD machines. From 2009 to 2011, it is forecasted that the worldwide LED capacity will triple. However, to successfully penetrate lighting market, LED has to compete with conventional light sources. The price of LED lighting is much higher than that of conventional lighting, which leads to a low customer acceptance rate of LED lighting even though LED lighting has lots of advantages over conventional lighting. In this study, to forecast when LED lamps can significantly penetrate the lighting market, we base our estimation of payback period on the technology road map of U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE), and use one-year payback period as the criterion. It is forecasted that LED lamps might be able to penetrate the lighting market of applications having longer operation time (e.g. commercial lighting) and largely replace CFL (compact fluorescent lamps) and incandescent lamps around 2015. However, around 2015, it is also forecasted that LED lamps are less likely to replace other major conventional light sources whose energy efficacy and lifetime are better than those of CFL, for example fluorescent lamps. Moreover, even in countries having higher electricity price and government subsidies on LED lamps (10% of retail price), it is forecasted that LED lamps are less likely to significantly penetrate the residential lighting market until 2017 due to limited savings from shorter utilization. This prompts the speculation that the current forecasts of LED demand growth rate are over optimistic, and there might be oversupply and price competition in the near future if the new capacity is going to grow as planned. As a result, there might be a series of mergers and acquisitions in the near future, especially in China. To be successful in the new business landscape of the LED industry, in addition to technological advancements, it is important to create perceived product differentiation (e.g. branding).