It really does depend how often they are used, I am sure the lights upstairs in my mothers house must be old, simply as not used, however when working on the Sizewell power station I bought a second hand 18W fluorescent fitting one returning home I fitted it at the top of stairs one as kept on hitting the old pendent lamp with loft lid and blowing it, and two I had won from some where a HF emergency lamp fitting last year I renewed the tube must have been in daily use since early 90's.
I keep clear of Philips, I bought 16 x 8W globe Philips bulbs for living room and dinning room, started to fail within the year, so wife got 6 x 8W really cheap globe bulbs and those Philips taken from the dinning room were used as spares for living room, by the two year mark down to 8 left as a temporary fix used two Lidi LED bulbs, only 1.4W each but made the Philips bulbs look really dim. Couple of months after that Lidi did some 3W LED bulbs and rest were swapped for LED bulbs, never seen the room so bright. I will not touch Philips again, they were really expensive and the worst CFL I have ever used. Now go for cheap bulbs every time they last longer.
