Market for LEDs in notebooks will grow from around $200 million in 2008 to over $800 million in 2010, according to a new research report available at Electronics.ca.

Use of LEDs in laptop computers is widely expected to see continuing explosive growth, as LEDs become increasingly adopted for backlighting displays. LED solutions are more expensive than cold cathode fluorescent lamp backlighting, but have better power efficiency, offer better colour saturation, are thinner, and do not use mercury. Dell has already publicly committed to using LEDs in all their notebooks by 2010 and other manufacturers are also committed to a surge in LED notebook backlighting in 2009 and 2010.

Jamie Fox, a market analyst, forecasts in a report on optoelectronic components that the market for LEDs in notebooks will grow from around $200 million in 2008 (with just over 10% of notebooks shipped using LEDs) to over $800 million in 2010 (when about half of notebooks shipped are forecast to use LED technology). LED Driver ICs will also have a smaller but significant revenue opportunity. The market size for LED driver ICs in notebooks is forecast to be over $50 million in 2010.

TVs are potentially an even bigger revenue opportunity for LEDs and LED Driver ICs, as their displays are larger. A notebook typically uses about 60 or 70 LEDs, while a TV tends to use several hundred or more, depending on size. However, TVs are adopting LEDs only slowly, according to Fox. He said that: "While thin profiles and greater power efficiency are key differentiators for LEDs in notebook computers, they are less important for TVs. The price gap in TVs between LED and CCFL backlighting is greater, and there have been technical difficulties with LEDs." Having said that, after several years of falling behind expectations, the first half of 2009 has seen renewed optimism for the prospects of LED backlighting in TVs.

As LED revenue growth in notebooks will be driven mainly by increasing adoption of LEDs rather than by increasing sales of notebooks, a positive future does not depend on a strong economic recovery or buoyant PC sales. However although LEDs in notebooks will see rapid revenue growth in the next 2 or 3 years, the market will saturate quite quickly thereafter. In the longer term, LEDs for use in a variety of different lighting applications is predicted to be the leading source of LED revenues.