Recently, I received two wonderful reports from LEDinside, Taiwan. The first report touched upon how the LED light source would reach 32 percent CAGR. The second report highlighted the price volatility among LEDs during Q2 2010. According to LEDinside, rapid growth and adoption of LED commercial lighting will be happening more during 2010 and 2011. On the other hand, LEDs for household lighting are not likely to take off until 2011 or 2012, the key year, here, being 2012. Also, the market penetration rate of LED light source is likely to reach 3.7 percent in 2010 and a CAGR of 32 percent is estimated between 2009 and 2013. Also, LEDinside informed that the growing shipment in LED backlight and lighting application had led to a shortage in the chip supply. Consequently, white LED prices were flat in Q4 2009: Also, backlighting prices dropped 1 to 3 percent, while prices of high power LEDs were stable. Price volatility is likely to occur in LEDs used for LCD TV backlighting. Further, the market potential and packaging supply will likely expand as well. There are no doubts here! First, LEDs are in! And so is LCD TV backlighting. However, I am not sure whether LEDs will take that long to be successful in the commercial lighting domain or even household lighting. Already, there's a social concern for energy saving. Hence, it led to CFLs and its success. At least, several urban households in India have taken to CFLs. Now, I do receive e-mails from friends who request me to help them source quality LED suppliers from China. I was lucky enough to have spent a long time in that part of the world talking to such suppliers. Some new entrants do speak with me at times on LEDs' potential. Obviously, the interest is quite high! What I don't see happening in India, yet, is more of LED products being either developed or sold for households! Perhaps, that's an area for start-ups or new entrants to look at! There is a significant market in India for household LED products. Why only India? For everywhere, actually! Do you need to wait for reports to tell you when a specific market segment will take off? Or, would you rather be the change agent yourself and make things happen? Definitely, I'd go with the latter! The time has come to focus on LEDs and LED-based products for household lighting. Imagine the amount of energy it would save, not to speak of much lower energy bills. Please give this a serious thought! Pradeep Jan. 20, 2010