Fair Question: When is the world going to get an LED light bulb? Of course most people are thinking about a 60-Watt incandescent equivalent when they ask this. In lighting-speak, that style is called an A-Lamp. It’s fair to say that the general public is pretty obsessed with A-Lamps—because, of course, most of us have a few boxes of them stored in a cabinet somewhere, ready to be screwed in the next time one burns out.
It’s also a question that Cree CEO Chuck Swoboda says he gets from nearly every person he talks to about LED lighting. When Chuck relayed this common question to Cree shareholders a couple weeks ago during our annual shareholders’ meeting, I know many of them were wondering the same thing. So how does he answer the question?
“The answer is: It’s not about the light bulb,” he said. “Yes, we are going to do things to enable companies like GE and others to do the light bulb. But at the end of the day, although (the A-Lamp light bulb) is what we all think about, this represents only about 10 percent of the market opportunity.”
If you’re reading this and you’re thinking: “How can it not be about the light bulb? The bulb has been around for 130+ years. It’s even the universal symbol for a great idea. How can LED lighting adoption not be about that familiar bulb?”
Cree CEO Chuck Swoboda addresses Cree shareholders. Pic courtesy of my camera phone.
Well, consider this: Light bulbs only make up a small fraction of the $108 billion worldwide market that Freedonia Group estimates for 2010 for lamps and lighting fixtures—around 10 percent of the residential market, to be more specific. So even though many of us think of plain-ole-light bulbs when we think of light, there is an entire industry of lights (and other types of bulbs) that are consuming the vast majority of the energy used for lighting. Think about all the streetlights, office lighting, gym lights, etc. that are on a lot more than your bedside lamp or even your kitchen lights. It’s those markets that must fundamentally change, Chuck said, if we’re going to spread widespread adoption of LED lighting.
“If we’re truly going to change an industry and convert people to LED lighting, the light bulb will eventually become completely irrelevant,” Chuck said. “It only exists because it breaks all the time and you have to replace it. Fundamentally there’s no reason to have a bulb when the LED lasts as long as the rest of the lighting fixture. And so while we will do things to move the market, we will do things in this area because it does change consumer perception, it is just a step toward really changing an industry.”
I know many of us are still attached to that regular, old light bulb. But the next time you’re out shopping or dining, look up at the lights shining on you. Chances are you’re not going to be seeing a lot of A-lamp style light bulbs.
I took this photo at an airport. Note the lack of traditional A-Lamps.
So while we’re finding lighting solutions to the billions of sockets out there, why don’t you start spending some time planning a memorial for the incandescent light bulb. Maybe a time capsule would be a fitting tribute. When your family digs it up generations from now, it will be like finding a box of old records in the attic. Then you can gather everyone around and tell them about how you were once a revolutionary in the LED Lighting Revolution.
