Recently, GE Lighting expects most light bulbs, including the incandescent to be replaced within a decade by LED.

Maryrose Sylvester, who was appointed GE’s head of the lighting unit in March, said in an interview, that “People are starting to talk about LEDs for general lighting for indoors. By 2020, about 70 to 80 percent of the general lighting market is going to be enabled by LEDs.”

Sylvester pointed out that GE’s lighting unit has doubled its research and development spending on LED technology over the past five years to seize this opportunity. But he didn’t disclose a specific figure.

In his opinion, demonstrating to customers how the investment pays off with lower maintenance costs and energy savings is critical because LED systems are more expensive on the front end.

In particular, GE’s traditional rivals, Siemens AG’s Osram unit and Royal Philips NA, have both predicted similar growth rates as new regulations combine with declining LED prices .Siemens is expecting the market to grow to $13 billion (about 9.8 billion euros) by 2013 and rise another 44 percent by 2016. Philips predicted in September that 45 percent of the market will be LED-based by 2015.