Growth potential for automotive LEDs
According to a recently published report, 'LEDs in Automotive Applications', from IMS Research, the car is becoming an increasingly important source of applications for light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as an alternative to incandescent light bulbs and halogen and xenon lamps.
Their importance is set to rise substantially, doubling from a EUR0.45billion ($0.65billion) business in 2006 to EUR0.90billion ($1.3billion) within 10 years.
Today most of the value comes from applications inside the car, such as backlighting dashboards and displays, and supplying a wide range of indicator lamps. However, the LED value from external lamps will rise from one-third of the LED total to over one-half by 2013. Most external LED lamps are used at the rear, as brake, tail and turning lights. However, analyst Jamie Fox states: “Daytime running lights (DRLs) will become much more widely used in the future. The DRL business will grow from under $5million [EUR3.48million] last year to over $100million [EUR69million] by 2013.”
Not all cars use DRLs. In some countries, such as Canada, Finland and Sweden, they are obligatory. In other countries, such as the USA, they are not required but are used on many vehicles. In some countries, such as the UK, they are little used. However DRL use is growing overall. In particular, EU studies have concluded that DRLs save lives, so a law requiring DRL use throughout the EU is widely anticipated.
DRLs will offer a good opportunity for LEDs, according to Fox: “LED DRLs have long lifetime and low power consumption, as well as an attractive appearance.” LED DRLs, which were first introduced on the Audi A8 in 2004, are currently used on less than one per cent of vehicles. However, IMS Research forecasts that, with very strong growth after 2009, the market revenues for LED DRLs in the next decade will be similar to revenues for LEDs for functions used in rear lighting applications today.
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