Solid state lighting (LED and OLED) have been the focus of second generation of lighting. But OLED applications have not been developed as fast as LED ones due to high cost and low efficiency. To increase brightness, OLED firms have been trying to improve on materials and panel structures. In particular, Panasonic has been trying to change the substrate under the phosphor powders into hemisphere lenses that are highly reflective. This can help to improve lighting efficiency to 128lm/W, better than peers.

Panasonic has been eager in developing OLED lighting products and has set up a joint venture Panasonic Idemitsue OLED Lighting (PIOL) with material provider Idemitsu Kosan. PIOL mainly focuses on production and sales of OLED panels while Panasonic makes OLED modules and sell OLED lighting products.

The OLED lighting panels produced by PIOL have thickness of only 2.1mm with lighting efficiency of 30lm/W. The color temperature is 3,000K with color rendering Ra level above 90. PIOL expects to increase lighting efficiency to 100lm/W in 2015 and 130lm/W in 2018.

OLED lighting has been used in specialty markets. Panasonic forecasts that OLED lighting applications still have a lot of room for growth. The firm indicated its goal to develop such products. With technological improvements and decrease in costs, Panasonic predicts revenues from OLED lighting will reach JPY15 billion (US$187 million) in 2015.