Reaffirming the importance of horticultural and agricultural lighting to its future, Signify CEO Eric Rondolat recently projected industry-wide market revenue from the sector of over $2 billion by 2023 and told analysts that the field is currently the leading top-line driver in what the company has identified as its sustainability businesses.
The broad category of “agriculture,” which for Signify includes lighting to nourish the growth and development of food crops, plants and animals, will tally €1.8B (about $2.2B) in 2023, up from €1.5B ($1.8B) in 2020, Rondolat said in a presentation at last month's virtual Capital Markets Day gathering.
While he did not spell out how much of the €1.8B Signify itself hopes to garner, Rondolat made it clear that the horticultural market is a key prong in the company's growth strategy, especially given the food challenges facing the planet.
“We talk about a very, very exciting opportunity because it solves one of the fundamental issues that we’re going to have on the planet, which is food availability and security,” Rondolat said, referring to the ramifications of climate change and population growth. “We cannot feed 10 billion people in 2050 if we produce food in the same way. So this is a market that we see growing by 6%, getting closer to 2 billion at the end of the period (2020‒2023). And we have a unique position with 150-plus light recipes when it comes to crops and also animals. So we’re very well positioned in a business that we have been focusing on for many years.”
Rondolat has identified four revenue generators the he refers to as “growth platforms for sustainability,” and which the company expects to tally €5B ($6B) in revenue in 2023.
Using a broad notion of sustainability to include environmental and human wellbeing, the three other sectors are: UV-C, which is known to deactivate the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and which many lighting companies are pursuing; solar lighting; and 3-D printing of luminaires.