MOST SHOPPERS LIKE NEW HOLIDAY LIGHTS...

L.E.D. Holiday Light Sales Boom
Leora Broydo Vestel, December 21, 2009 (NY Times)

"Gillian Gillett, a San Francisco resident, loved the energy-efficient, light-emitting diode holiday lights that she purchased for her Christmas tree last year. This year, she bought more and draped them around a tree in front of her home…

"…[D]ecorative L.E.D. holiday lights appear to be catching on in homes across the country. With the nation’s most iconic Christmas trees lighting the way — the White House and Rockefeller Center trees are decked out in L.E.D.s — retailers are reporting brisk sales for the lights this holiday season, despite the rough economy…Home Depot…is seeing a triple-digit increase in L.E.D. holiday light sales compared to 2008. And Christmas Lights Etc., an online retailer, announced a 200 percent boost in L.E.D. sales over last year…"

L.E.D. lights in D.C. (click to enlarge)

"Jagdish Rebello, an electronics market analyst at iSuppli, said that L.E.D.s will account for an estimated 25 to 50 percent of total holiday light sales this year in retail channels, despite prices that can be two to three times higher than traditional incandescent holiday lights…Over 100 million decorative light strings are expected to be sold in the United States this year…

"While L.E.D.s have been used as indicator lights in electronics products for many years, manufacturers only recently began using them in household lighting products. And until L.E.D. holiday lights came along, incandescents had the Christmas lighting market cornered…[According to] Energy Star, a government energy-efficiency rating system for lighting and other products…L.E.D.s use up to 90 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs to produce the same amount of light, and can last up to ten times longer."

L.E.D. lights in Rockefeller Center. (click to enlarge)

"…[H]oliday [L.E.D.] lights transform only about five percent of the power that they use into light, while the rest gets emitted as heat. Colored incandescent holiday lights are even less efficient, with as little as one percent of the energy getting converted to light…

"L.E.D.s have other selling points…such as the availability of solar-powered outdoor holiday lights, which use rechargeable batteries, but no electricity. And, unlike incandescents, a problem with one L.E.D. light does not affect the rest of the string…[but] most consumers have yet to look to L.E.D.s as replacements for standard incandescent light bulbs. Success in the holiday lighting category may help to change this…[T]he relative inexpensiveness of L.E.D. holiday lights [may] create low-cost expectations for other types of L.E.D.s…"