It seems as though Philips and GE have the big home improvement stores locked in as far as lighting supplier goes.  Home Depot is primarily Philips, with some GE bulbs as well.  Lowe's has now gone from being exclusively Sylvania to majority GE.  ACE Hardware and True Value is GE.  Wal-Mart is primarily GE.  I kind of get the impression that ever since Osram got Sylvania from GTE that the sales and marketing folks at Sylvania have not been doing a good job to compete and get into the stores to sell the products.  I truly believe that the majority of the lamps made by Sylvania are superior to those of GE and Philips.

What are your thoughts?

Doesn't lowes have mostly Sylvania? It's mainly the Reveal line, certain types of halogen, and fluorescents in 1 and 2 lamp consumer sleeving that are GE. Here, I see Sylvania bulbs in other stores like a number of supermarket chains, many hardware stores, and Kmart.

me unsure i have the exact opisite of your problem but yes agree they have the best lamps
San antonio is pretty much 50 percent sylvaina while the other 2 of the 3 getting 25 percent
home depot, walmart, lowes, HEB, McCoys, do carry sylvana A bulbs and the price is cheaper than the other two
 
as floursecent lamps goes and CFLs i notice they tend to do their own things but still sylvania is the largest
becase of lowes, HEB, McCoys lumber co. carried sylvania, but home cheapo philips of course and the only place to get philip lamps. now as GE goes in lamps it surpass phillip because of walmart, and dollar general, and smaller chain store down the line here in San Antonio, TX

now where i live is 50 percent sylvania and 50 percent philips, now 12 miles north of me in small town is nothing but GE since super S food took all lamps off the shelf to make room for grocery inside, it moved it to
Super S Ace hardware next door. just a bit of inconvenince of grocery shopping then go back next door for lamps.

Ryan, I've noticed the exact same thing here in Michigan! Now the only place I can find a good selection of Sylvania lamps is Menards which is over an hour away. Might be that they just can't compete on price so the stores are going the cheaper routes, even including going to off-brands. I like to shop locally whenever possible, but lately I've been buying nearly all my lamps online.

Here in New England, you can easily find Sylvania products. Lowes, Kmart Sears and most of the major grocery store chains carry their products. As for quality,I wouldn't say they are the best. I'd say that all of the big three make some good stuff and some duds. GE makes a better 32T8, they last longer than Sylvanias and don't go mercury starved like Philip Altos. Sylvania does make some good 4' T12 lamps. I've seen some last upwards of ten years in 24/7 service. Philips makes the best PL compact fluorescents. It all depends on the type of lamp you use.

As jercar954 said, Sylvania lamps are easy to find in New England I can find them at Stop & Shop,Kmart,Benney's,Lowes,Wal-Mart(A lamps only),Home Depot(A lamps only)and the local supply house I go to.

Sylvania is seems quite plentiful here, being sold at SBS and dominant at Lowes.  GE is still the most common, being sold at Fred Meyer, Walmart/Sam's Club and Sentry Hardware, and one electric supply shop, as well as limited selections at Home Depot, Lowes and True Value Hardware.  Philips has historically been hard to find here before Home Depot opened.  They were sold at AAFES, with only a limited selection sold at Sears.

Interestingly, another local electric supply used to sell Sylvania, but lately, seems they sell mostly Satco.  Sylvania was also sold at Pay 'n Pak before they shut down in 1992.

Sylvania seems to be somewhat easy to find here, I know Lowe's is still mostly Sylvania here along with Home Hardware, RONA. Most of the grocery stores such as Loblaws and Metro still sell only Sylvania.

GE is sold by Lowe's, Canadian Tire, Zellers, and Walmart and I think only Home Depot and Sears sells Philips here.

It should be noted that GE is the one that took the hard pounding in recent years. Here in California, in 2007 all the major supermarket chains carried GE. These chains are Safeway (and its Vons division here in southern CA), Stater Bros, Ralphs, Raleys (and its Nob Hill Foods, Bel Air, and Food Source divisions), Save Mart (and its Lucky division), and Albertsons. Today, from this list only Ralph's and Stater Bros still sell GE. Safeway has gone to Feit (weird for a supermarket!) and the rest has gone to Sylvania. Since Ralph's and Stater Bros only has stores in Southern California, that leaves the San Francisco Bay Area without a single major supermarket chain that sells GE. One supermarket chain called Winco Foods sells Philips bulbs but they have far fewer locations than the above.

I forgot about Safeway.  Last time I was in there (and paying attention) they had GE, but than again, they aren't the first place I think of when I need to go out and buy a light bulb.  A local hardware store does sell Feit, along with GE.  The local True Value also has Westpointe (I think made by Abco), and a few NOS GTE Sylvanias.

Hi Ryan/All

I've always had a thing for Sylvania lamps for some reason. It must be the quality of them over the years, my vintage ones just keep powering on.

The Lowes near my house sells nothing but sylvania.

Here in Northern NJ Sylvania bulbs seem somewhat easy to come by. Shoprite grocery stores carry them (and have for years) and some other stores and electrical suppliers do too. Personally, I used to always go for GE bulbs, but the quality of their incandescents has really dropped (except for the Hungarian halogens, I've been happy with those). Now I buy mostly Sylvania and have been quite happy with their performance. As for linear fluorescents, I've found GE and Sylvania fluorescents both to be decent.