As one of distributor Exertis Micro-P’s ‘brands to watch’, ViewSonic‘s new product portfolio embraces a broader range of projectors and a new series of interactive flat panel displays. Mark Lufkin, managing director at ViewSonic Europe, outlines the company’s ambitions and its strategy for achieving its challenging new targets.
It’s now 20 years since ViewSonic set up shop in Europe. Best known for its desktop monitors, the well known ‘three finches’ logo was first seen on a projector in 1999. As early as 2001 – the year AV News was first published – ViewSonic showed a 50-inch large format display. Digital signage solutions, with displays linked with an IP network, followed in 2005.
It is with some justification that the company claims to have “visual excellence in its DNA”. The current projector range includes LED, DLP and Laser/ LED Hybrid models. The portfolio of Large Format Displays includes solutions for retail, directional, corporate campus, and other environments where immersive, impactful messages are essential. Other models incorporate video conferencing and touch technology to enhance workplace and classroom collaboration.
A further, and fast-growing, category for ViewSonic is that of thin and zero client devices for cloud applications. These offer ease of deployment, scalability, security and reliability for instant access. ViewSonic Europe’s Managing Director has a growth strategy that involves developments in each of these product categories, and believes that the general technology landscape is currently working in his company’s favour.
Growth opportunities
Lufkin believes that the potential exists for ViewSonic to grow its projector business aggressively, despite a market which has generally seen flat sales in Europe over the last year, while also taking advantage of the generally buoyant market for Large Format Displays and cloud focussed. Despite the erosion of the projection share of the market by LFDs in general, Lufkin believes that sales of both interactive projection and Interactive Flat Panel Displays are set to grow.
For ViewSonic, growth expectations are positive but not unachievable. In the projection category, the company expects to grow its share from 5% this year to 7% in 2016. LFD predictions show an increase from 3% this year to 5% in 2016. This is equivalent to 100% growth in the company’s sales from this year to next and 50% the year after. Numbers discussed with Exertis Micro-P suggest that these targets are entirely achievable. Much more difficult to forecast is the growth in the cloud display category, which depend on the rate of adoption of other enabling technologies.
ViewSonic’s history in the desktop display category positions the company well in the corporate and commercial segments. With the growth in laptop and tablet sales, the consumer market is now significantly smaller than the commercial, where there is still a degree of growth. Steady growth is also present in the corporate segment for projectors, where ViewSonic feels it has an advantage. The same is true of the demand for LFD, where Lufkin sees increasing sales in both Digital Signage and Corporate Display.
Channel partners
With the company’s roots in IT, Lufkin believes that there is considerable potential to develop relationships with the Pro AV channel, which currently accounts for just 45.2% of the company’s sales. Lufkin believes that ViewSonic’s breath of range, focus on full HD (where relative share with other formats has seen a 41% increase at ViewSonic against general market growth of just 6%) and even networked models (which suffered across the board) holds the potentials for new business opportunities for the channel.
ViewSonic is committed to taking advantage of market trends. Wireless connectivity is an area which has seen the company among the early adopters. The company’s ViewSync Technology is built into its PJD6345, PJD6544w PJD7533w and PJD8633ws projector models and provides a variety of wired and wireless connectivity options. The ViewSync WPG-370 Wireless Presentation Gateway delivers 1080p video streaming in commercial and office settings and supports advanced wireless connectivity for Android and iOS mobile devices, as well as Intel WiDi laptops.
But perhaps the ViewSonic products with the greatest potential in today’s market are the company’s range of SWB Interactive Flat Panel Displays. Available in screen sizes from 55” to 84”, with 6 point touch and Windows 8 pre-installed, these can be paired with: ViewSonic’s CDP 24/7 digital signage displays; CDE 18/7 entry-level LFD; its EP ePoster all-in-one digital sign ; and the company’s NMP Network Media Player to build solutions. For the future, ViewSonic will increase its addressable share of the LFD market by introducing 36 and 55-inch models.
Channel proposition
With the increased commitment by Micro-P in particular, resellers and integrators should expect to achieve respectable margins while offering end-user customers attractive pricing. AV News recently used ViewSonic’s newly released 84-inch interactive flat panel display and found it to be a well designed, well made, quality product with subtle colour – much more so than some of the projectors and monitors we have tested in the past.
The company has introduced two new technologies designed to improve colour accuracy and consistency. ViewMatch is a colour management system that “maintains strict standards for colour temperature and white balance correction to ensure the most accurate white level for image rendering”.
Calibrated to be 100% consistent from screen-to-screen, each panel is set to display the exact same colours and sRGB settings as your original HD-device source images. SuperClear Image Enhancement Technology Is designed to deliver the best colour performance and extends display viewing angles to 178 degrees both horizontally and vertically.
If ViewSonic can continue to match quality standards with its ability to innovate and deliver profitable solutions – the company will certainly be one to watch.
