Industry news

According to LEDinside, the global average price of 40W replacement LED light bulbs rose 2.8% to US$11.10 in October, while 60W replacement bulbs rose 3.5% to US$15. LEDinside analyst Allen Yu said that vendors in the US and Europe have called a truce in their price war after three consecutive quarters of downtrend. Prices of some promoted products thus saw noticeable rebounds in the first half of October. LEDinside also said that China's LED market saw prices fall despite a demand upturn in demand from TV backlight applications.

After slumps in July and August, China's LED market began to recover due to a rise in demand from LEDTV backlight units. However, prices of standard and mid-power LED products continued to slide. On a monthly basis, the average price of 0.2W 2835 products, which are mainly supplied by China-based companies, dropped slightly by 1.6% in October. In the 5630 package segment, Osram, Lumileds, Samsung and other major international suppliers led the charge in cutting prices for mid-power products. The average price of low-power 5630 products also dropped by another 4% in October after it having fallen 6.79% in September. Yu noted that capacity utilization rates of China-based companies will remain low in the short term, so the price downtrend will persist despite that the market is starting to recover.

Prices of 40W LED replacement bulbs rose significantly in October. The UK saw an average monthly increase of 9.9% after witnessing relatively large declines for three consecutive quarters. Some products that had been part of promotion deals also returned to their normal prices (e.g. an Osram 8W 470lm bulb rose nearly 30% to US$5.93). The average price in Germany also rose 9.2% during the period, though some products had even larger increases (e.g. a Philips 8W 470lm bulb rose by over 20% to US$25.45). Prices have been generally stable in the US, but a few products saw wide swings in October. A Feit Electric 7.5W 500lm bulb fell 11% to US$7.99, whereas a pack of four 6W 450lm bulbs from Cree arrived at US$26.87, a 21% jump from US$22.22. In Asia, prices were constant in October with the exception of Japan, which saw a 4.5% drop.

The end of promotions for some products also led to a general price rebound for 60W LED replacement bulbs in October. The US saw an average monthly increase of 9.2%, but again there were larger increases for some products. A pack of two 10W 800lm bulbs from Sylvania rose 25% to US$19.99; while a pack of three 9.6W 800lm bulbs from Feit Electric arrived at U$US18.79, up 23.2%. The average price increase in Germany reached 9.4%. The price rally in Japan was smaller at 3.5%, with a few products seeing larger shifts in prices due to exchange rate fluctuations. For the rest of the world, prices of 60W replacement bulbs remained flat in October.