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A Shining Future in Sight for LEDs in Cars |
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Written by IMS Research
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20 Apr 2005 |
If the progress of recent years on high-brightness LED costs and
technical performance continues, there is every prospect of the global
market for LEDs in external vehicle lights approaching $400 million per
year by 2010. This is a growth of a factor of ten in a mere eight
years, according to a recently published report by IMS Research. If the
price is right and the light is bright, then the LED’s inherent
advantages of long life, fast switch-on and low power consumption will
make it preferable to the incandescent lamp that has dominated the
automotive market for so long.
Today, the dominant application for external LED lights in cars is in
the centre high-mounted stop light, particularly in Europe. In
addition, this year will also see models with LED combination rear
lights (stop, tail, turning and reverse lights), or LED daytime running
lights in volume production.
“Combine the dramatic increase of LED use in external vehicle lights
with the internal applications, such as dashboard/console illumination
and status indicators, and the global automotive market for LEDs could
reach $1 billion by the end of the decade.” said Nicola Dadswell,
market research analyst with IMS Research. However, because of the
dramatic increase in the use of LEDs in portable consumer applications,
such as mobile phones, the automotive market will account for only one
sixth of the total year 2010 LED market, no higher a fraction than
today.
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