Top 10 Commercial Lighting Manufacturers to Trust (2024)

In this article, we highlight the most trustworthy commercial lighting manufacturers around the world.

What is Commercial Lighting?

Commercial lighting is a broad term used to describe lighting designs focused on commercial spaces. These spaces include offices, restaurants, warehouses, factories, etc. If a building sells services or products, it falls under the definition of commercial lighting. However, lighting for fabrication facilities such as factories is often categorized as industrial lighting solutions.

Types of Lighting Manufacturers

Several types of manufacturers exist in the lighting industry. Identifying the differences between these manufacturers’ approaches will help you better understand their product offerings.

1. LED Components Manufacturers

Companies that manufacture the core components that go into LED light fixtures. These components are then sold to third-party integrators that manufacture the final light fixture.

An LED fixture has three key components.

• LED Module (Chip) – A small piece of semiconductor attached to a substrate that produces light.
• LED Driver – An external electrical box that manages the current supply to the LED module.
• Frame/Fixtures – The outer frame of a light fixture, usually a metal housing with a plastic diffuser at the front.

There are only a handful of manufacturers that research and develop LED modules.

2. LED Fixture Manufacturers

Most lighting manufacturers fall into this category. They buy LED modules, drivers, and additional sensors from other manufacturers and incorporate those components into their fixture designs.

Fixture manufacturing involves the following aspects.

• Designing and Outlining a fixture’s capabilities (Brightness, Beam Angle, Power Consumption, Cooling Solution, etc.)
• Designing and Fabricating the fixture body (Shape, Size, Installation Mechanism, Water and dustproofing, etc.).
• Ensure fixtures comply with various health and safety regulations (CE, ETL, UL, ISO9001, etc.).

3. Hybrid Manufacturing Model

A hybrid manufacturing model means the business makes LED components, which it uses to fabricate complete light fixtures. The excess component production is then sold to competing light manufacturers.

Hybrid models are incredibly profitable. However, it requires a huge investment in semiconductor fabrication facilities.

4. OEM & ODM Service Providers

Finally, we have OEM and ODM service providers. These companies operate similarly to fixture manufacturers and don’t make their own LED components.

• OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) – They take customer designs and manufacture products accordingly.
• ODMs (Original Device Manufacturers) – They help design and manufacture the products according to customer specifications.

Top Commercial Lighting Manufacturers

Here are our top picks for the most trusted commercial lighting manufacturers around the globe.

1. Cooper Lighting Solutions

Cooper Lighting Solutions is a brand of the massive corporation Cooper Industries LLC. Originally a farm equipment and kitchen appliance manufacturer, Cooper Industries would soon enter the lighting design business in the early 1950s. The post-WWII era saw incredible growth in the industrial sector. Soon, the Cooper light fixtures became a household name throughout the United States.

In the early 2000s, the company quickly adopted the newly emerging LED lighting technology. The gamble paid off big time, and Cooper Lighting Solutions would eventually expand its operations to the EU, Asia, and South America.

Today, Cooper Lighting is an industry leader and serves almost every sector of the lighting sector. From expansive commercial lighting solutions to simple household fixtures, it does it all.

With the recent uptake in automation and smart lighting controls, the lighting industry has seen a huge shift towards network-controlled LED lighting. Their proprietary WaveLinx software enables businesses to control and monitor LED lighting from anywhere in the building. Additionally, their wirelessly connected commercial lighting solutions are excellent for retrofitting old buildings.

Cooper Lighting Solutions has positioned itself as a one-stop shop for large-scale industrial and commercial lighting projects. Architectural lighting is one of Cooper’s strong points. You can have the company design and implement the most comprehensive and reliable lighting design in your commercial space using its innovative technology and years of experience.

Post-pandemic Cooper Lighting Solutions has also incorporated UV disinfection lighting into its product catalog. The hospitality industry will surely benefit a lot from this health-focused lighting approach.

This constant need to improve and innovate is a defining characteristic of Cooper Lighting Solutions. Businesses looking to get LED light fixtures from Cooper will definitely be satisfied by their performance and quality.

2. Philips Lighting

Philips is a name synonymous with light fixtures. The Netherlands-based company has been manufacturing high-quality lighting solutions for over a century and has no intention of slowing down anytime soon.

However, Philips Lighting has not stayed stationary in this ever-evolving lighting landscape. In 2018, the company underwent a major restructuring. Signify NV is now the parent company of Philips Lighting and primarily focuses on manufacturing LED SMDs (surface-mounted devices), which it uses in its Philips-branded light fixtures. The excess LED chips are sold to OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) service providers and competitors.

A big advantage Philips Lighting (Signify) has over the competition is its in-house LED manufacturing. Many other manufacturers on this list acquire LED chips from Philips, pair them with LED drivers from other companies, and control them using lighting control systems.

While it’s common to source parts from other manufacturers, the practice comes with significant cost overhead. While competitors have to pay a premium to use Signify-manufactured LED chips, Philips gets a discount and easy access to the production.

This vertical integration of fixture design, fabrication facilities, and lighting distributors has enabled Philips to produce high-quality products in large volumes and establish a competitive pricing structure.

Philips Lighting is currently offering complete lighting solutions for various commercial applications, including lighting for offices, health care providers, airports, factories, and more.

3. GE Lighting

GE Lighting is one of the most popular legacy lighting manufacturers in the United States. Founded in 1982, GE started its business by selling good old incandescent lighting bulbs.

GE Lighting completely shifted to an LED lighting-centric model in the mid-2010s. Currently, it offers a robust catalog of energy-efficient solutions for residential and commercial applications.

While GE was late to the LED party, it was one of the first companies to create lighting solutions for the smart home industry. You can buy LED lights from GE and pair them with their smart sensors to control indoor illumination from anywhere in the world using their smartphone app.

GE Lighting is one of a handful of lighting manufacturers that designs and makes its own LED drivers. In fact, GE drivers are one of the most sought-after components in the OEM LED lighting space.

4. Cree Lighting

Cree LED is a semiconductor research and manufacturing company that also sells LED lighting products. Starting in 1987, the then-relatively unknown company focused solely on semiconductor technology research and development.

It was the company’s dedication to innovation that led them to create the first commercially available blue color LED light. At the time, green and red LEDs dominated the market, and creating blue LEDs was thought impossible.

Cree’s blue LED was still not perfect. It was more of a violet color than blue and lacked the brightness of green and red LEDs. Later, Shuji Nakamura, a researcher at the Nichia Corporation, would crack the code and create the first True Blue LED.

Although Cree would lose to Nichia in the long run, the initial hype generated from their first blue lighting emitting diode was more than enough to propel the company forward. It is now one of the biggest manufacturers and suppliers of LED chips.

Cree Lighting doesn’t sell retail light fixtures to consumers. Instead, it sells LED chips to OEM companies and offers complete LED lighting solutions to commercial and industrial clients. The company has a strong presence in the architectural and decorative lighting space.

In a few short years, Cree has accomplished more than anyone could have imagined. Who knows what new success avenues lie ahead for this company?

5. RC Lighting

RC Lighting is an Architectural lighting solutions provider based in mainland China. It produces LED commercial lighting fixtures using components sourced from other manufacturers. Basically, RC buys LED chips from one company and LED drivers from another and combines them with its designed LED light fixtures.

Third-party integrators like RC are the most popular type of commercial lighting manufacturer. These companies pay a premium to LED chip manufacturers for their components and focus on product fit and finish, safety compliance, and fixture design.

Manufacturers like RC Lighting offer customers a choice between the most popular LED chips on the market and the most reliable LED drivers. This business model allows it to invest in other elements of lighting fixture manufacturing, such as quality control, IP rating, and safety certifications, without worrying about semiconductor yields and driver efficiency.

RC Lighting offers a diverse range of indoor and outdoor lighting products aimed at landscape lighting, office illumination, architectural lighting, and stylized color illumination.

6. Osram Lighting

Osram Licht AG is a photonics company specializing in semiconductor processing, light-emitting diodes, sensors, and laser technology. It is one of the companies on this list that specializes in researching, developing, and manufacturing LED chips.

Known for its exceptional lighting quality and reliability, Osram diodes are industry-leading in every sense of the word. Most major LED lighting brands use Osram chips in their fixture design.

Osram’s success can be traced back to one critical moment in 1999. When the company decided to invest in a semiconductor manufacturing facility and establish Osram Opto Semiconductors (AMS Osram)

Very few competitors can match Osram LED lights’ wide temperature range (CCT), and even fewer can achieve their high color rendering index (CRI).

Osram’s LED lighting solutions are aimed at industrial and commercial businesses in automotive, entertainment, and architectural lighting design. It offers services in over a hundred countries across six continents.

7. Acuity Brands

Acuity Brands is a multinational corporation that offers lighting solutions and intelligent spaces. These two specialties combine to form the ultimate building management system. The 132-year-old company started as a linen company, even supplying uniforms for WWI soldiers. By the 1950s, Acuity had established itself as the go-to option for linens and raw materials.

During the 1990s, the company expanded its business to include a chemical division dedicated to the research and refinement of rare raw materials.

It was only in the mid-2000s that Acuity Brands transitioned to an LED lighting and smart lighting control business. The massive mega-corporation quickly turned to acquisitions of startups and established lighting manufacturers.

Today, nearly 30 lighting and lighting-related brands are under the Acuity umbrella. It sells its LED components under its various LED components brands and light fixtures through its seventeen different retail brands.

However, Acuity’s claim to fame is its lighting controls and intelligent space offerings. The company offers its corporate clients a chance to automate the entire building, emphasizing optimization and energy efficiency.

8. Eaton Lighting Systems

Eaton is an electrical and power management company that has been around for over a hundred years. It is an incredibly massive company primarily dealing with industrial power systems and commercial lighting.

Like RC Lighting, Eaton doesn’t manufacture LED SMDs and drivers. It integrates LED components from other manufacturers into its commercial lighting operations. It optimizes fixtures to run with its power supply solutions.

Eaton’s rise in popularity can be attributed to its offering energy-efficient solutions that combine quality light fixtures with automation solutions and supported but reliable electrical products. It doesn’t just sell light fixtures. It also sells circuit breaks, battery backups, and power distribution solutions.

Eaton Lighting stands above all other commercial lighting manufacturers due to its complete package approach to lighting solutions. Its main customer base is warehouses, factories, and research labs.

9. Thorn Lighting

Thorn Lighting is a UK-based commercial lighting solutions provider. It primarily focuses on practical urban lighting, such as emergency lighting for hotels, street lighting for public spaces, decorative lighting for pubs, and various landscape lighting applications.

Thorn Lighting deals exclusively with LED-based lighting solutions like other companies on this list. The energy efficiency, reliability, and quality of LED lighting solutions are far ahead of other lighting technologies like CFL and incandescent.

Thorn is the commercial lighting brand of the Austria-based Zumtobel Group. Zumtobel is a massive corporation with ten dedicated LED manufacturing facilities spread over three continents. It is the second-largest lighting components manufacturer in the EU.

Zumtobel manufactures LED modules, drivers, and sensors under its Tridonic brand. Tridonic licenses its LED components to its sister company, Thorn, for a significant discount, allowing it to maintain competitive pricing in several geographical regions.

10. Lena Lighting

Lena Lighting S.A. is a Polish lighting solutions provider and a relatively new player in the LED manufacturing game. Established in 1989, the company sold its first LED lighting fixtures in 2003. The shift to LED lighting resulted in increased demand from local and international customers.

In just a few years, Lena expanded its operations to 32 European countries. It would quickly establish multiple manufacturing facilities in Warsaw, Poland. By the end of 2021, Lena Lighting had licensed Samsung technology to fabricate LED chips using SMT (surface-mounted technology) machines.

Lena Lighting has offices in Europe, Asia, Africa, and various Middle East countries. It has yet to expand its business to North America, where there is more competition from local manufacturers.

The company has taken on massive lighting projects based in the EU and some in Russia and China. Lena has extensive experience with mega mall lighting, data center illumination, and street lighting.

Other Notable Manufacturers

Litetronics International Inc

Litetronics is an Illinois-based lighting provider focused on LED solutions for commercial buildings and government offices. Although it has a relatively small product catalog, it offers high-quality products and excellent customer service.

The company has no presence outside of the US. However, Litetronics is an excellent option for US customers, especially ones with buildings in Illinois.

TRILUX

TRILUX is another German-based LED lighting manufacturer. Although the more popular Osram Lighting often overshadows it, TRILUX has been developing lighting technology since 1912 and sells products in over 50 countries worldwide.

A key difference between TRILUX and Osram is that Osram makes its own LED modules. Still, despite being the lesser-known German lighting company, TRILUX has much to offer. It has exceptionally high-quality products and a robust spare parts program.

Businesses looking to invest in TRILUX equipment can rest assured that they will always get maintenance support.

Commercial vs. Residential Lighting

However, application isn’t the only factor differentiating commercial and residential lighting. Here is a short list of the many differences between commercial and residential Lighting

1. Purpose

Residential lighting generally focuses on ambient lighting, balancing visibility with comfort. In contrast, commercial lighting serves several different purposes. It can maximize job site visibility, improve office focus, establish human-centric lighting in hotels, or create unique visuals at a club.

2. Durability

Commercial lighting solutions are built to a higher quality standard. These light fixtures are expected to run continuously for several hours a day in sometimes harsh environments. Think about your local supermarket, which stays lit 24/7.

You need some seriously powerful and reliable LEDs for such applications.

3. Application

Commercial lighting includes specific lighting fixtures such as emergency lighting, LED panels/troffers, and floodlights that are otherwise unusable in a residential setting. Exit signs are a mandatory element of commercial lighting but are also unnecessary in your home.

4. Cost

Of course, the additional features and durability of commercial lighting come with a price premium. Hotels, in particular, commonly use LED light fixtures paired with occupancy sensors and dimmers to prevent energy waste. Thus, more robust LED drivers are required to accommodate these features.

Similarly, LED lamps are expected to last longer and have lower maintenance periods.

7 Factors to Consider Before Selecting a Lighting Manufacturer

The requirements for choosing a commercial lighting manufacturer are stricter than those for residential lighting. You buy light fixtures in bulk and get locked into a single supplier.

So, it’s best to consider some additional factors that will help you narrow down the right manufacturer for your business.

1. Performance of Lighting Solutions

Quality and performance assessment should always be your first step. Check if the products meet your desired brightness and efficiency requirements. Ask the manufacturer for a detailed product specifications sheet.

2. Product Quality

You can assess the quality by requesting product samples before placing a larger order. Alternatively, look at the standard warranty period for the product. A warranty period of 3 years or more shows the manufacturer’s confidence in its fixture design.

3. Lighting Technology

LED technology is generally the best option for commercial lighting projects. However, older incandescent and metal halide light bulbs can offer a warmer and more natural feeling lighting. Identify your business needs and choose the appropriate lighting technology.

4. Fixture Design

Fixture design serves a few purposes. Knowing the fixture dimensions, power consumption, and weather resistance is very important.

• Fixture dimensions determine if the lights will fit in your existing building design. Larger recessed lights are not compatible with low-profile ceilings.
• Identify the total power consumption to ensure your electrical distribution setup can provide consistent power to the fixtures.
• Weather resistance will determine if the light fixtures can be deployed in an outdoor setting.
• Commercial and industrial applications also demand a more robust metal body for the light fixtures.

5. Energy Efficiency

Energy-efficient light fixtures are a necessity for any large-scale lighting project. As the number of fixtures increases, energy costs can quickly add up. Many countries impose strict efficiency regulations on commercial buildings and mandate the use of quality LED fixtures.

A good way to identify energy efficiency is to check if the products carry CE, ISO, ETL, or UL markings. US products also have an Energy Star marking that indicates the item is in line with Department of Energy guidelines.

6. Sustainability

Sustainability isn’t just about reducing our carbon footprint. Sustainable light fixtures use recyclable or biodegradable materials that reduce environmental damage. They also have good reparability, so the fixtures get an extended lifespan.

Of course, sustainable light fixtures are often subject to government tax breaks and incentives, so businesses are rewarded for their environmental consciousness.

7. Hidden Costs

Large-scale commercial lighting always has hidden costs. Consumers should identify these costs beforehand and include them in the total budget. The following are a few examples of hidden lighting costs.

International Shipping Costs

Buying products from overseas will always be expensive. Shipping costs from China are usually lower due to the immense shipping network and partnerships forged by the Chinese government.

Tariffs and Taxes

Countries often impose harsh tariffs on international products to dissuade customers. The idea is to make foreign products more expensive than local ones in order to promote the local economy.

Installation Costs

Oftentimes, buying products is the easy part. Getting a qualified and competent contractor to install them is the hard bit. Lighting installation may require rewiring, new electricity distribution boxes, and construction work.

Software Cots

Several manufacturers offer smart lighting controls for LED lighting solutions. These control systems allow you to manage your lighting design from virtually anywhere, but this convenience comes at a cost.

Software costs can sometimes be more than the light fixtures. Additionally, these smart lighting controls are proprietary technology, and some products may only work with the specified control system.

Conclusion

There are many commercial lighting manufacturers around the world fighting for your attention. Many may offer attractive pricing and feature sets to get ahead of the competition. However, identifying the trustworthy ones from the lackluster ones is all about research. Luckily, this article provides several good options for businesses looking for reliable lighting solution providers.

Trustworthiness shouldn’t be your only judging criteria. Also, ensure that the manufacturer and their services are relevant to your lighting design and vision. Geo-location, shipping costs, and fixture design are also important factors to consider.

Illuminate Your Business with RC Lighting!

RC Lighting is one of the biggest LED architectural lighting manufacturers in China. All of our products are made with high-quality components sourced from reputable brands. We offer a wide range of Indoor Lighting and Outdoor Lighting fixtures designed to perfection for commercial applications.

Customer satisfaction is at the heart of our business model. We offer several value-added services, such as no minimum order quantities (MOQ), a robust five-year warranty, and attractive discounts for commercial lighting solutions.

Get quality products and huge savings with RC Lighting Today. Contact us Now!