My understanding has always been that lasers have a very low efficiency. I don't understand how it can possibly be more efficient to use a laser than an LED. But maybe my thinking dates back to the days of gas discharge lasers and solid state lasers are just that more efficient?
I think I've seen references to 50-60% efficiency for production lasers, though I could be mistaken on that. Given the very low efficiency of lighting systems in general (incandescent bulbs waste 95%+ of input energy, even CFLs and LEDs are in 20-40% range AFAIR), that's very high.
