LED market bullish on high adoption ratio

Rise in adoption on back of strong push towards sustainable lighting solutions

The Light Emitting Diode (LED) industry across the country is bullish on growth prospects on back of high adoption ratio from consumers.

The industry is expecting tremendous growth in the coming five years as demand for commercial use of LEDs is growing.

The current monthly output of LEDs across the country is approximately five million pieces. The current market size of LED lights business is around Rs 2,500 crore across the country and this is expected to grow at 45 per cent over the next two years.

"There is a strong push towards sustainable solutions in lighting especially in India. The lighting industry is expecting healthy growth in LED segment in 2015-16 on back of this push towards adoption of sustainable lighting solutions," said Arun Gupta, managing director, NTL Group.

Industry players believe that government's domestic efficient lighting programme is a good initiative which will propel consumers to adopt LED bulbs early. As on date, there is no proposal to make it mandatory.

"The lighting companies have also been working to upgrade technology, which is again playing a critical role in bringing down the production cost of LED lights. Further, with growing demand, production volume will pick up, which will help to bring down the price," said Sandeep Khurana, head - lighting division, Havells India Ltd.

"Out of the total Indian lighting industry turnover of Rs 14,000 crore, the LED industry is worth approximately Rs 2,000 crore. The estimated turnover of the lighting industry pan-India in 2020 is around Rs 37,000 crore and out of this, Rs 22,000 crore is estimated to be from LED segment, which will be in excess of 60 per cent of the total turnover," said Raju Bista, managing director, Surya Roshni Ltd.

Surya Roshni's current annual turnover from LED segment is in excess of Rs 100 crore and the company aims to increase this to Rs 500 crores in the next two to three years. The company's LED production capacity is approximately one million pieces of LED bulbs per month.

Talking about leading demand generating segments, Gupta said, "The streetlight sector has seen a major movement in this space. Other sectors are commercial places, retail outlets and hospitality as the amount of usage is 24x7."

Manufacture and supply of low cost and low quality LED products in the market is an issue which will be addressed with Compulsory Registration Order (CRO), a scheme initiated by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeiTY), falling under the Union ministry of Information Technology and Communications.

"It is true that many unorganised players are also manufacturing and supplying low cost and sub-standard quality LED products in the market. However, with CRO scheme of DeiTY becoming operational from May 7, 2015 onwards, this will also be curbed. In addition, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is considering to make the BIS mark mandatory for LED bulbs from 1 watt to 26 watts very soon," said Bista.

Manufacturers expect the Union government to reduce custom duty and excise duty on LEDs and state governments to harmonise Value Added Tax (VAT) to five percent.