China's Lighting Exports to US: 2025 Market Structural Changes

China's lighting exports to the United States underwent obvious structural changes in 2025. While mainstream and traditional lighting products faced downward pressure, high-end specialized and automotive lighting segments showed strong market resilience amid shifting US demand and market competition.

In the electric light source segment, total exports fell 21.8% year-on-year. Conventional LED bulbs and tubes recorded declines of 24.1% and 20.3% respectively. Generic traditional light sources were largely phased out, with ordinary medical and research incandescent lamps dropping sharply by 83.3%.

In contrast, high-value professional light sources achieved impressive growth. Special tungsten halogen lamps for medical and research use increased 18.7%, and vessel, aircraft and locomotive-specific halogen lamps rose 24.2%. Professional medical and industrial discharge tubes jumped 101.2%, reflecting growing market demand for high-precision, application-specific lighting products.

Lighting fixture exports decreased 25.5% year-on-year. Weak US real estate and commercial construction activity heavily suppressed demand for engineering and commercial lighting, with individual product categories falling as much as 40%. General LED lighting fixtures dropped 15.0%.

Consumer lighting showed diverging performance. Large-scale renovation-related lighting sales continued to shrink, while festival string lights and portable consumer lighting remained stable. This trend indicates US consumers are shifting from big home investment projects to small, experience-based lighting purchases. Automotive lighting remained the most robust category. The segment's overall export decline was limited to 12.5%, while professional automotive lighting and signal devices only fell 6.8%. Supported by active US vehicle replacement demand and global supply chain restructuring, automotive lighting has become a reliable growth segment amid market downturns.

Overall, 2025 export data shows a clear industry upgrade. Low-margin, homogeneous lighting products are facing continuous elimination in the US market, while specialized medical, industrial, transportation and high-precision lighting solutions are gaining market traction and leading industrial transformation.