Now much less reliant on mobile phone backlighting, the market for high-brightness LEDs is bouncing back from two years of sluggish growth. Thanks to increasing penetration in products such as digital cameras, notebook PC backlights and cars, the market for packaged high-brightness LEDs grew nearly 10 per cent in 2007 to $4.6 billion. According to Bob Steele, whose annual update traditionally opens the Strategies in Light conference each February, the acceleration showed that the market is recovering from "slow growth" through 2004-2006. Philips downlight While a staggering 39 billion units were shipped during the year (up 26 per cent on 2006), it is now clear that HB-LED makers are becoming much less reliant on the mobile phone industry. That's good news for chip makers, because price erosion in the mobile phone sector is a major influence on the overall market, and a key reason why market growth has languished at only 6 per cent for the past couple of years. ...