OLED lighting markets to reach US$4.5 billion by 2013

The OLED lighting market will reach almost US$4.5 billion by 2013 and grow to $5.9 billion by 2015, according to a report from US-based industry analyst firm NanoMarkets.

The firm claims that in the past year the prospects for OLED lighting have made great leaps forward due to improvements in OLED performance and manufacturing.

The report, entitled ‘OLED Lighting Markets 2008’, analyses the commercial opportunities for OLED lighting used for backlighting, general illumination, specialty/architectural lighting, signage and niche applications together with detailed eight-year (volume and value) forecasts of these markets.

The report states that the unit costs of OLED lights are likely to remain higher than older general lighting technologies but the extra cost will be offset by improved lifetimes and efficiencies. During 2008, OLED lifetimes improved from 24 to 100 kh. The US Department of Energy now expects OLED lighting to reach 150 lm/W efficiency in 2012 rather than 2014 as previously forecast. NanoMarkets believes these and other improvements will drive the general illumination OLED market to $2.3 billion in revenues by 2015.

Low-cost printing methods and new inks will help propel OLEDs into the backlighting market. NanoMarkets expects the backlighting OLED market to reach $1.1 billion by 2015. The recent scaling up of factories in Asia to build large OLED displays will also benefit the manufacturing infrastructure for OLED lighting and lead to larger panels within a few years.

In 2008, lighting designer Ingo Maurer introduced the world's first OLED ‘function table light’ and GE researchers are developing lighted curtains and lighted wallpaper. By 2015, NanoMarkets projects OLED architectural and specialist industrial lighting sales to reach $1.9 billion.