Beijing, China-- (SBWIRE) -- 08/05/2010 -- Although LED has many advantages, it is not as good as xenon lamp in cost performance. While LED will see price drop, xenon lamp will further have its cost reduced and deliver better cost performance than LED will do. Xenon lamp also does better than LED in power consumption and energy conservation. With the biggest disadvantage in heat dissipation, a problem that is hard for LED to tackle in a short time, LED headlights are unlikely to become the mainstream in the next decade.

Becoming more and more popular, xenon lamp has expanded its application from luxury cars to top-configured mid-class cars, and may become a standard configuration for mid-class cars in the future. However, in the field of compact cars and small cars, halogen lamp shows obvious cost advantages. As the penetration rate of xenon lamp is about 32% at most, LED may still have growth potential. For example, Audi A8 replaced xenon lamp with LED at the end of 2009, because LED has more comprehensive performance, and does better especially in rainy, snowy or foggy conditions.

The growth of the penetration rate of xenon lamp in China is much higher than the global level, because the growth of luxury cars in China ranks first in the world. It’s estimated that China's penetration rate of automotive xenon lamp will rise from 5% in 2009 to 26% in 2014. In China, while the sales growth of ordinary cars declined significantly in 2010, the sales of luxury cars soared.

From January to May of 2010, BMW, Mercedes and Audi, three luxury German brands, only achieved a global sales growth rate of over 10%, but their year-on-year sales growth rates in China were 107%, 118% and 39.9% respectively in May. In H1 2010, FAW-VW Audi sold 108,600 automobiles in total, exceeding the cumulative sales of the first nine months of last year, up 64% year on year. 93,993 Audi cars made in China were sold out, up 57% year on year. 14,607 imported Audi cars were sold in H1, up 139%. In contrast, the grass-roots BYD F3 only gained the growth rate of 1.97% in H1 2010, Excelle got -10.32%, Jetta 1.93%, Elantra Yue Dong 2.68%, Elantra -4.44%, and Santana -38.4%.

Skoito, Ichikoh and Stanley, three major Japanese automotive lighting companies, have delivered steady performance. Although being a member of Toyota Moto Corporation, Skoito has successfully won cooperation of German brands, and in particular, accounted for over 40% of the supply for Shanghai Volkswagen, snatching some market shares of Magneti Marelli. Stanley has built a solid relationship with American brands, grabbing some market shares of Delphi and Visteon. Ichikoh, only focusing on the Japanese market, has a difficult time. The three major European automotive lighting companies - Valeo, Hella and Magneti Marelli (AL), especially Magneti Marelli, a Fiat Group company, perform unsatisfactorily. Mobis and SL of South Korea not only monopolize the South Korean auto brands market, but also occupy some General Motors market shares.

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