July 19, 2007, Glen Allen, VA--The market for printed and organic lighting will exceed US$2.9 billion by 2012, according to a new report from NanoMarkets LC, an industry analyst firm based here. The report claims that the higher energy efficiencies and ability to create novel lighting products provided by organic light-emitting diode (OLED) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in particular will push the entire printed and organic lighting market up to $5.9 billion by 2014. NanoMarkets says that most of the new business will come from the backlighting, general illumination, and architectural/specialty industrial lighting applications with significant opportunities also in vehicular lighting, signage, and a variety of niche markets.
One of the key findings in the report is that an immediate opportunity exists for OLEDs, especially printed OLEDs, to reduce costs, because backlighting can represent as much as 38% of the cost of liquid-crystal displays (LCDs). OLED backlighting is receiving serious attention from firms such as UDC, Toyota, Tohoku Device, OLED-T, and Add-Vision. Backlighting is an area where high-brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs) have achieved significant recent penetration, but the ability of OLEDs to deliver light over a wide area makes them more suitable than the point source HB-LEDs. As a result, OLED backlighting will generate revenues of $1.9 billion by 2014.
OLEDs also promise a revolution in general illumination markets. An incandescent bulb lives for 1 Khr, while OLED lights have already achieved 100 Khrs. OLED lights are also already more efficient than incandescent lights and approaching the efficiency of fluorescent lights. OLED general illumination products have been targeted for funding by a variety of government projects in the U.S. and Europe and this segment of the OLED lighting market is expected to generate $1.4 billion by 2014.
The technologies discussed in this report enable entirely new kinds of architectural and specialty industrial lighting products providing architects and designers with new abilities to innovate. Walls of light, lighting tiles with controllable color, and flexible lighting fixtures all have the ability to enhance both functionality and aesthetics leading to a market providing $1.3 billion in revenues in 2014.
Lighting markets based on carbon nanotubes will be worth about $520 million by 2014 and much of this lighting will be printed. Carbon nanotube (CNT) lighting is very rugged and cost efficient and has the potential to create such novel products as transparent signage. CNT lighting is attracting attention from major electronics firms in Japan and is also getting some funding from the U.S. Department of Energy.
The NanoMarkets report provides an analysis of the commercial opportunities for electroluminescent, nanotube, and OLED lighting used for backlighting, general illumination, specialty/architectural lighting, vehicular lighting, signage, and niche applications. It also includes detailed eight-year (volume and value) forecasts of these markets, strategic profiles of all the leading firms developing and marketing this emerging technology, as well as details of the activities of government-funded projects in the U.S. and Europe.
Among the firms mentioned in the report are AU Optronics, Applied Nanotech, Avery Dennison, Cambridge Display Technology, Canon, Delta Electronics, Dow Corning, DuPont, Eastman Kodak, Elumin8, General Electric, Idemitsu Kosan, ISE/Noritake, Kodak, Konica Minolta, Merck, Mitsui, Nippon Printing, Nippon Steel, Novaled, Osram , Pelikon, Philips, Rogers Corp., Samsung, Seiko Epson, Shimane Masuda, Sumation, Sumitomo, Toppan Printing, Toshiba-Matsushita, Universal Display, and Vitex Systems
Additional details about the report can be found at www.nanomarkets.net.