Writing for the Gerson Lehrman Group, consultant Munisamy Anandan explained that for several years many people in the lighting community had expected such bulbs to belong to solid state lighting products.
However, as a result of the application of white LEDs in backlights for LCD televisions, mobile phones and notebooks, demand has shot up.
Mr Anandan suggested that the recent launch of the Apple iPad is set to push this need even higher, making a shortage of bulbs a possibility in 2010.
He commented: "The demand for white LED in LCD backlights has gone beyond the demand in general illumination. 24 billion packaged white LEDs will be in demand by 2012 for backlight application alone."
This week, DisplayResearch predicted that global sales of LED backlights could reach 184.9 million by 2015.
