LIA COVID-19 Research Reveals Impacts of Coronavirus on the Lighting Industry

Usually, we tend to write about novel lighting technologies and offer you the best lighting inspiration. Affected by the actual COVID virus spread however, things are different. To get a feeling about the impacts on the lighting business, the Lighting Industry Association (LIA) surveyed its members to establish the effect of the current lockdown. We thought it would make sense to post it as a benchmark reference to mirror your own market position.

LIA COVID-19 Research

Currently, 89% of the members from the lighting industry reported their business remained open in some form with the most operative functions being sales (95%), dispatch (90%) and accounts (87%).

The average capacity lighting businesses are running at is around 45%. Approximately 44% of staff are currently furloughed and only 4% reported that they had made any redundancies as a direct result of the coronavirus lockdown.

Many companies (69%) are reporting difficulties in obtaining raw materials or components with a variety of reasons down to late deliveries, shortage of shipping capacity and a slow return to manufacturing capacity in China among the most common.

Governmental Support for the Lighting Industry

We also asked if members had attempted to access the various Government support schemes and 47% reported positively, however, many had experienced difficulty owing to the portals not being fully ready or lack of support from banks.

“LIA Survey Reveals the Effects of Covid-19 on the Lighting Industry”

LIA Survey April 2020

On the subject of credit, 38% reported that their customers had either asked for or had simply taken extended credit with others reporting late payers deducting early payment discounts outside the qualification period.
On a more positive note, 71% of Lighting Industry Association members reported having a recovery plan in place ready for the removal of lockdown measures.

A .PDF document including further COVID-19 research topics can be downloaded here.

The LIA wishes to support its members in any way they can and a special page is generated as a resource aimed at providing regular Government updates, advice, FAQs, news and other information to help see us all through this crisis. Advice from Government is updated daily and is being sent directly to members upon receipt.

The full report and available can be read here https://www.thelia.org.uk/news/coronavirus-update