A group of students from the university of Oulu carried out a market survey as part of their studies during autumn 2017. Their objective was to find out what was the present state of lighting in public buildings in the biggest Finnish municipalities and cities. At the same time, they studied how well different lighting manufacturers were known in the public sector.
Finland’s 56 biggest municipalities and cities (>20,000 inhabitants) were chosen as the target group, and the study was carried out as telephone interviews using a neutral question template. Attention was paid to the way questions were phrased so that they would not affect the answers, so that the interviewees would say what they really thought about the situation.
On the basis of the survey, it can be concluded that the majority of the municipalities, i.e. approximately 70%, have started at least partly to use LED lights in general indoor lighting. Typically, the share of LED lighting in these municipalities is approximately 25%. In some cities, the share of LED lights is up to 75%. On the other hand, there are cities in Finland where they do not use any LED lights yet. LED tubes that replace fluorescent lights are used in 75% of the municipalities studied, while approximately 38% of the municipalities have invested in integrated LED lights.
In addition, how well different lighting manufacturers (20 companies) were known in the customer segment in question was also investigated. As expected, people knew the largest manufacturers, i.e. Osram, Philips Lighting and Airam Electric, best. Surprisingly, Valtavalo came fourth right after the three companies mentioned above, and well-known and large companies such as Fagerhult, Ensto Lighting and Glamox came after it.
The result took Markku Laatikainen, CEO of Valtavalo, by surprise.
For a small company like Valtavalo the result was excellent”, Laatikainen says satisfied. “Persistent work for improving awareness is starting to bear fruit, and more and more people know us or at least they have heard about us”, he continues.
People value Finnish work more than ever, and maybe it can partly be seen in the results of the survey”, Laatikainen says.
