Smart Lighting to Shine in 2016: the Autumn 2015 Hong Kong Lighting Fair Survey

In a market awash with LED lighting products amid falling prices, the industry is increasingly turning to smart lighting and other system items in the search for growth. The global market is expected to remain steady in 2016, according to industry players at the Hong Kong International Lighting Fair (Autumn Edition) held in October 2015, with China, Western Europe, ASEAN and North America seen as the markets with the highest growth potential. HKTDC Research polled 383 buyers and 262 exhibitors at the event on the prospects for the lighting market and industry trends likely to emerge over the coming years.

Hong Kong International Lighting Fair 2015 (Autumn Edition)

The lighting market is expected to remain steady in 2016.

Market outlook for 2016: fairly steady

Overall, the global market for lighting products is expected to remain steady next year.

About 86% of the buyers and 90% of the exhibitors canvassed at the fair expected sales to remain either unchanged or increase in 2016, roughly the same as the poll results as regards the market prospects from the same event in April. It is noteworthy that the share of respondents expecting unchanged 2016 sales (as compared to 2015) increased, with fewer respondents predicting rising sales next year: 54% of buyers and 39% of exhibitors surveyed said their sales would remain unchanged in 2016.

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Respondents generally held a positive view of overseas lighting markets. All markets were given a higher score than the neutral level of 3 by those surveyed. As usual, the Chinese mainland was seen the most promising market for the next two years, followed by Western Europe, ASEAN, North America, Taiwan, other Asian countries and Australia/Pacific Islands.

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System products to gather momentum

LED and related green lighting products continue to be viewed as the category with highest growth potential in 2016, named by 26% of respondents, followed by other household lighting items with 20%. Notably, smart lighting and solutions, commercial lighting as well as outdoor lighting, which are largely related to lighting system products, were also rated substantially, accounting for 15%, 14% and 13% of all the respondents, respectively.

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This can be partly explained by the popularity of LED lighting thanks to falling purchase costs. Coupled with lower power consumption and longer lifetime of LEDs, all these help to widen the scope of lighting applications. About 97% of the surveyed buyers and exhibitors expected that LED lamp price would fall further by as much as 20% within next 12 months. Indoor household lighting, smart lighting system, outdoor lighting and indoor office/commercial lighting were regarded by most of the respondents, or 28%, 27%, 15% and 13%, respectively, as the LED application areas with the highest growth in next 1 to 3 years.

Smart lighting the industry darling

Another important development to the industry is that the cities of the future would become smarter on the advent of the Internet-of-Things (IoT), which is a technology to connect different devices at home and beyond by a smart platform, including the lighting apparatus, other installed appliances as well as mobile devices. Enhanced convenience and smarter living, as well as energy saving, are among the major benefits to the users. At a seminar concerning the revolutionary impact of IoT on the lighting industry held at the Fair, speakers suggested it would become a major stimulus for market demand in the future, while also creating a number of challenges for industry players.[1] (more details …..)

Industry players are generally positive towards the overseas markets for lighting products.

The popularity of LED is facilitated by falling prices.

Such opinions are in line with the findings of the survey conducted at the Fair. Notably, 82% of respondents said the development of smart city and smart home technology and related applications would facilitate growth in the lighting industry in the next couple of years. Among those respondents, 43% expected that household lighting systems that were compatible with or could be controlled by smartphone/tablet applications had the greatest development potential for the industry. This is followed by smart lighting systems primarily with energy-saving purposes for household as well as industrial and commercial purposes, as indicated by 40% of such respondents.

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Profile of respondents

383 buyers were canvassed, with 27% based in Hong Kong and the remainder based in overseas countries/regions. Their major selling/export markets were the Chinese mainland (21%), Asia other than China (17%), Western Europe (17%), Hong Kong (16%) and North America (15%).

Of the 262 surveyed exhibitors, 27% were based in Hong Kong and the rest based in overseas countries/regions. Their major selling/export markets were Western Europe (27%), Asia other than China (22%), North America (18%) and the Chinese mainland (8%).

[1] The seminar titled “The Internet of Things: Lighting’s Next Revolution” was held on 27 October 2015 at the Hong Kong International Lighting Fair.