COVID's Impact on Lighting Revenues

May 11, 2021

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When widespread COVID lockdowns were initiated in March 2020, well-respected economists were predicting rough financial waters ahead. In that month alone, the Dow Jones Industrial average plunged 15%. Unemployment rates soon experienced unprecedented spikes. And many well-informed business leaders were bracing for a rapid market deterioration that was expected to be similar to, or worse than, the great recession of 2009.

One of the surprising (and relieving) outcomes of the pandemic economy is that financial markets actually performed well in many areas, despite all of the challenges of a pandemic that was layered on top of a U.S. election year.

COVID was a major prevailing factor that impacted businesses globally, but just like non-pandemic times, company performance is also affected by other market conditions/opportunities -- and by how each company navigates through them.

The fragmented lighting industry doesn’t have very many publicly traded companies that report financial revenues of manufactured lighting and controls products. We thought that we would take a close look at some of the financial data that is available – even with some of its imperfections.

Companies like Signify and Zumtobel sell most of their products outside of North America.
Another smaller company like Orion, is so closely tied with certain large national accounts, that swings in retail construction can result in huge variances in its quarter-to-quarter revenues.
Lighting sales at Hubbell Inc. are only around 20% of total sales – with the rest being mainly electrical and power related products. About two-thirds of LSI sales are lighting segment sales.

We pulled information from the financial reports of the companies below. The start date of the COVID period varies based on each company’s fiscal year start and end date. We aligned the COVID period start date for each company to be as close as possible to the unofficial date that U.S. COVID lockdowns became a real thing – that fateful March 11, 2020 night when Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert’s positive COVID test instantaneously suspended the NBA season.

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NOTES:

Signify and Zumtobel figures use a currency conversion of 1 EUR = 1.19 USD
Signify numbers exclude Cooper Lighting. Numbers are based on Signify financial reports and inside.lighting calculations and estimates of Cooper Lighting sales before and after the March 2, 2020 acquisition.
Approximately 20% of Hubbell Inc.'s business is Hubbell Lighting
Approximately two-thirds of LSI Industries' business is the lighting segment
Changes to OSRAM's corporate structure and financial reporting do not give visibility to a full-year of sales results after March 2020.