Cree’s act of filing lawsuits against Feit Electric and Unity Opto recently shows the firm’s struggle to maintain dominance in U.S. LED lighting market amid growing popularity of LED lighting products, according to a Bloomberg report.

In the past years, lighting has solidified its position as cornerstone of the smart home. With Philips hue, OSRAM Lightify and GE Link, consumers experience increasing freedom of choice.

The shipped amount of ceiling light in 2014 accounts for 38% of the total shipment value of all lights in China lighting E-commerce market, ranking first place with the highest shipments among all lighting products, according to the latest “2015 Chinese Lighting E-commerce Market Analysis” released by LEDinside, a research subsidiary of the Taipei-based market intelligence company TrendForce.

The emergence of online and mobile shopping in China has changed the distribution structure of many industries, including the lighting industry. Due to the popularity of LED lighting products on online shopping platforms, the LED lighting market scale could go up on a yearly basis. At the latest, the proportion of lighting products sold through online channels is expected to reach 30% in 2017, according to "2015 Chinese Lighting E-Commerce Market Analysis" released by LEDinside, a subsidiary of Trendforce.

Increasing workforce wages and commercial real estate rental fees in main cities of China has led to the emergence of e-commerce, which has the upside of saving about 60% of operating cost. The importance o the E-commerce trend in China can no longer be ignored. In 2013, online shopping accounted to approximately US $300 billion of e-commerce market in China, and is estimated to reach US $445 billion this year. China’s lighting e-commerce business models are gradually shifting from Customer-to-Customer (C2C) to Business-to-Customer (B2C), according to Analyst Figo Wang of EnergyTrend, a division of global market intelligence firm Trendforce, while attending LEDforum 2014 held in Taipei, Taiwan, on Oct. 24 2014.

According to LEDinside, a research division of TrendForce, in July 2013, the total revenues of LED companies listed on Taiwan’s stock market reached NT$ 10.95 billion (US$ 366 million), with a Year on Year (YOY) increase of 24.9% and a Month-Over-Month (MOM) growth of 4.24%. Listed Taiwanese LED chip manufacturers revenues peaked NT$ 3.85 billion in the same month, while listed LED package manufacturers saw revenues climb to NT$ 7.09 billion. Despite effects from slowed backlight demands, end-market demands have attracted LED manufacturers to quickly expand into lighting applications.

Starting from 2012-2014, bans on incandescent lights has led to the gradual entry of LED products in the residential lighting markets, according to a latest search report by LEDinside, a research division of TrendForce. Improved LED luminous efficacy and lowered LED product prices contributed to higher consumer acceptance levels and rising penetration rates. Japan was the largest LED residential lighting market in 2012, followed by Europe and North America. However, China’s residential lighting’s global market share is also growing.