2019 LED lighting market prospects

The Hong Kong Trade Development Council conducted a questionnaire survey during the 2019 Hong Kong International Spring Lighting Fair (Spring Light Fair) held on April 6-9. The results showed that the lighting industry was reasonable about the short-term prospects. Buyers and exhibitors are cautiously optimistic about the sales prospects of lighting products in the foreseeable future. More than half of the respondents expect that product sales will increase during the rest of 2019. At the same time, strong demand in the Asia Pacific region is expected to add momentum to the development of the lighting industry in the next two years.

On the product side, overall, commercial lighting is expected to be the most demanding product category in 2019. The potential of the intelligent lighting market is still very rich, especially in the field of home automation and intelligent lighting control systems. In addition, some lighting products equipped with sensors and automatic dimming function will also be more popular.

The United States implemented tariff increases under Section 301, covering a wide range of lighting products. Despite this, about 47% of the respondents indicated that as of the time of the interview, the continuous trade friction between China and the United States did not have a negative impact on them. However, the same proportion of respondents indicated that export performance has deteriorated due to tariff increases.

The results of this survey show that exhibitors seem to be more vulnerable to the impact of tariff increases. 59% of exhibitors surveyed said that friction has had a negative impact on them, while only 40% of buyers have the same opinion.

If the US trade friction continues, it may eventually have an impact on the export of lighting products.

Overall, 46% of respondents believe that Sino-US trade friction will not have a negative impact on overall lighting product exports, a significant increase of 17 percentage points compared with 29% in the October 2018 Autumn Lighting Fair survey. On the other hand, although 47% of respondents are worried that trade friction will have a negative impact, the proportion has fallen from 53% of the Autumn Light Show.

Respondents were asked about their views on the overall prospects of the lighting products market in 2019. The results showed that they are more optimistic about the growth of sales, once again confirming the rebound of confidence in the industry since the autumn lantern show last year. Overall, more than half of the respondents (54%) expect the company's sales to increase, up 16% from October 2018, while the estimated sales decline is only 9%.