Green Wombat (among others) covers the move away from incandescent lighting towards compact fluorescent lightbulbs, but in an interview with Philips Electronics’ Paul Zeven also goes one step farther by pointing out that LED technology may quickly eclipse even compact fluorescents:

“Zeven sees CFLs as an intermediate step until LED technology can be perfected and the cost lowered for mass home and office use - something he predicts is another 10 or 20 years away. An LED - light emitting diode - is essentially a semiconductor chip and uses less electricity than even a CFL. LEDs theoretically can last for decades, dramatically lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Lights that virtually never burn out, of course, also changes the economics of the lighting business. “It’s a whole new ballgame for us as an industry,” Zeven says, noting that there will always be new demand as cars, televisions and other gadgets increasingly rely on LEDs.”

CFLs fit the model of a strategic innovation in that they require very little of the customer (just screw this type of bulb into any existing socket), but several local pundits have expressed fears about what this might mean to local incandescent lamp production (others have pointed out most of that actually is done in China now).

Still, it is exactly this kind of backwards, protectionist thinking that has hurt this region time and time again. If incandescents are being replaced by CFLs which, in turn, will be replaced by LEDs a decade or so from now, then shouldn’t we be more concerned about positioning local companies like Lumitex to take advantage of this emerging trend? And is the management of Lumitex doing everything it can do to position itself for this possible high-growth future?