According to 2008-2010 statistics, it is expected that by 2012, the market size of outdoor LED lighting applications will be 6.4 billion $, in which 4.3 billion $ are from LED lights.
In LED city lighting area, the government was always a supporter. Surveys reflected an upward trend in the percentage of LED lighting applications used in city lighting projects. “This is a huge cake, a 100-billion-size of cake, how to share it evenly? If it is possible, than each exiting domestic LED producers will become a billionaire. For me, the answer is no, they will never carve up this cake evenly, the market is a battlefield.” Said one CEO of a LED company in China. Currently, there are about 1000 LED lighting manufacturers (large scaled) in the mainland. Indeed, if the 100-billion-size market is shared evenly, each one of these manufacturers can obtain at least one billion $. However, it is no difficult to find out that manufacturers “really involved in the LED city lighting projects” are always a few familiar faces.
In fact, LED lighting applications and related control systems applied in the Beijing Olympics and Shanghai World Expo are all from several well-known international brands, like Philips, OSRAM, Bridgestar, etc. while other complementary products were all provided by large-scaled domestic lighting enterprises, like NVC, Starlight, TCL, Lonon, Simon Electric, Xinwen Line, CH Lighting.
“We have no quality for national lighting projects. For local municipal lighting projects, we cannot afford. In spite of participating every competitive tenders, only those who done a good job in public relations can finally win. ” implied this CEO in a helpless manner. Indeed, in China, usually those giant companies with considerable strength and deep local background can win in LED city lighting project biddings. In Dongguan, whenever there was a bid, there must be Kingsun (the largest LED lighting manufacturer in Dongguan) and always won the final bidding.
Municipal lighting project is a game with few players, and always those few players. Said the CEO from another small sized LED company. But like thousands of small and medium-sized LED lighting business owners, he was a veteran in the war of the competitive tender of municipal lighting projects, filling with hopes for the future market and the development of his company. They not only concentrated on city lighting projects, non-government commercial project is another big cake for them.