Panasonic To Sell Household LED Bulbs

OSAKA (Nikkei)--Panasonic Corp. (6752) said Thursday that it will begin selling home-use LED light bulbs on Oct. 21 under the brand name Everleds.

These LED light bulbs are designed to replace incandescent light bulbs without any modification to lighting equipment. They will last 40 times longer than incandescent light bulbs, or 40,000 hours, which translates to roughly 19 years of use based on an average of five and a half hours a day.

In addition, the LED light bulbs will use one-eighth the amount of power. A model with a brightness equivalent to a 60-watt incandescent light bulb will cost about 300 yen a year in electricity charges, compared with around 2,380 yen for the incandescent light bulb.

Panasonic does not plan to set suggested retail prices for the Everleds LED light bulbs, but standard versions will likely be sold for about 4,000 yen.

Panasonic's LED light bulbs are similar in performance and price to LED light bulbs sold by Sharp Corp. (6753) and Toshiba Lighting & Technology Corp. But the market entry by a company that controls roughly 50% of the 300 billion yen Japanese light bulb market will likely accelerate the expansion of the LED light bulb segment.

Panasonic plans to manufacture 50,000 LED light bulbs a month initially. This is equivalent to just several percent of the company's total output of incandescent, fluorescent and other types of light bulbs, but the figure is expected to be raised to 25% by around 2012.

Panasonic is also considering selling LED light bulbs in the U.S., Europe, Southeast Asia and elsewhere, and has begun market research in those regions.

(The Nikkei Sept. 11 morning edition)