In spite of the global economic downturn, demand for LED lighting will continue growing in the next year, forecasted Cree CEO Chuck Swoboda in a Tuesday interview with Reuters.

Though most companies have avoided large capital expenditures under the sluggish global economy, many are eager to slash their energy costs and save on maintenance, and LED lighting is receiving more and more concern with its lower power consumption and longer life than market-dominant light sources, said Swoboda.

"When you look at energy efficiency, there aren't many things that can have as big an opportunity in the near term as switching to more efficient lighting," said Swoboda in the interview with Reuters.

Small to medium-sized lighting projects are still increasing at a relatively reasonable rate, said Swoboda, with local franchises of fast-food restaurants and small retail chains continuing to upgrade their spaces. As the price of LEDs are much higher than their traditional counterparts, it will take some time for the companies adopting this new light source to make the money back from saving of energy. According to Swoboda, the payback can take a time ranging from a little more than a year to around 4 years.

Cree, a leading lighting maker based in Durham, North Carolina, has been a rare bright spot in the manufacturing market with a reported 24 percent revenue rise and a 62 percent earnings gain in its most recent quarter. And there are currently three major competitors for the company, Toyoda Gosei Co. Ltd in Japan and Nichia Corp, as well as Osram, a part of Siemens.

Only 18 percent of Cree’s revenue was from the United States last year. And the company has expected more dramatic change in revenue from markets like China, which made up 33 percent of sales last year. "It's not growing at the rate it was, but it has remained relatively solid," Swoboda said of the China market, which he said has "a bias toward LED lighting."