The effects of Covid on the lighting market

How to react to the consequences that the crisis has brought in the lighting sector.

The advent of LEDs in the world of lighting radically changed the market scenario, in which there was a high barrier to entry, a profitable market for replacement lamps, significant product differentiation and, above all, profit margins.

From 2000 onwards, the companies in the sector have updated their activities to the new technology of light sources, not without sometimes painful consequences.

The pandemic underway will affect the lighting sector even more significantly and the Lux Review website has tried to identify some aspects of this crisis. Those most interesting for us are:

• Companies that had already adopted cloud-based accounting, corporate communication and customer relationship management (CRM) tools internally will have less difficulty adapting to a smart working model.
• Local production will be an advantage, even if the supply of LEDs depends largely on Asian countries such as China. Icons can boast an internal production system and an almost 100% local supply chain.
• We will have to respond to the changing sectors. The lighting industry has been led by three key sectors in recent years: retail, offices and hospitality. These sectors will be able to recover or continue to remain contracted, it will depend a lot on the development of social limitations. It is necessary to try (also) other ways. From the point of view of production, Icone always focuses on technological innovation, formal and use of the material as a response to changing market needs.

While it is true that many companies are having financial difficulties, product innovation and communication, especially digital given the limitation of physical experiences, are not activities that in our opinion can be neglected or, worse, abandoned.