Vernon J. Nagel
Analyst · Thompson Research Group
Again, very good question. Fluorescent is very important to the entire industry still. Fluorescent, for many applications, is still a very, very economical alternative to other light sources that are out there. Again, Acuity is agnostic to the light source, but we are maniacally focused on the application and having the right solution for that customer. An interesting little factoid. If you go back to 2008, fluorescent made up 42% of the total light source of the market at that point in time. In 2012, fluorescent made up 43% of the market. Most people would have thought that LED would have displaced that. LED is displacing other lesser efficient sources, such as HID than fluorescent. Our view is, is that over the next 3 years, half of the market could be converted to LED. We're not -- we don't know. But actually, we don't care because we are agnostic to the light source. What we do know is this, by 2015 or any period you want, the market is going to be made up of more than 0% LED and less than 100%. What Acuity is focused on is making sure that we have the complete lighting solution package for that customer. And this is why I pointed out the number of SKUs that we have today, it is proliferated meaningfully because of controls LED and other light source type products, such as OLED. We are very focused on making sure that we can meet the customers' needs irrespective of that light source. And the other thing I would say is Acuity, I believe today, is unmatched in its capability and understanding of light sources as it has been. And this is what you're seeing our outsize growth of our LED portfolio compared to the market. We have great products and we understand the application. In our fluorescent business, I mean, again, we don't look at these as separate businesses. We look at them as, again, total portfolio and solutions. In our factories, we have cells that are right next to each other that one is producing an LED-based luminaire and the other one is a fluorescent luminaire. So again, we don't look at these as separate businesses. We look at it as a holistic portfolio of being offered to the customer base. I hope that's helpful.