Shipments of incandescent bulbs rose last month; CFL shipments slightly declined.
Who says energy efficient bulbs are in style? You wouldn't know it from NEMA’s shipment index for incandescent lamps. It rose for the second consecutive quarter in Q2 2011, rising 5.6% over the same period last year.
And could sales of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) be taking it on the chin because of competition from LEDs? NEMA’s index for CFLs declined for the fifth consecutive quarter. Moreover, NEMA says the rate of decline in the shipments index accelerated to 18.5% year-over-year versus 16.8% and 8.7% during Q1 2011 and Q4 2010, respectively.
NEMA says the incandescent lamp share of 80% for the combined incandescent-CFL market is the highest reading since Q4 2007. Weakening demand for CFLs drove down its share of the combined CFL-incandescent market to 20%. The sales ratio for CFLs dropped to one out of every five lamps from the one-in-four-lamps level of the previous two years.
