Despite Futuresource’s results on the rising education technology market, the research company’s latest report on the global projector market comes to 1.76 million units shipped in Q1 2013, a year-on-year decline of 7.5% on the same period in 2012.
Futuresource sees the largest declines in standard definition mainstream products (1000 – 3999 Lumens) as demand shows signs of retraction in key western territories. Growth markets like Russia and India that had driven volumes in Q1 2012 experienced a difficult quarter as funding for education and public sector projects were suspended. Worldwide volumes of mainstream SVGA projectors fell 13.2% while mainstream XGA volumes declined 16.7% year-on-year. Widescreen resolutions continued to take a share of the mainstream segments, B2B WXGA volumes grew 7.7% while volumes of B2B 1080p products grew 74.7% with favourable pricing expected to increase demand for these products during the rest of the year.
Futuresource expects 2013 to be a difficult year of trading in the US projector market which peaked in 2010. The Chinese market continues its strong trend of growth in 2013 started the year only 2.4% up on CY Q1 2012 with reports some education business had been impeded after the change of leadership in the Communist party at the end of 2012.
While mainstream volumes suffer, the installation and large venue segment (4000+ Lumens) continues to return good business, global volumes increasing 9.8% year-on-year to reach 146 000 units according to the Futuresource tracker. As a number of vendors continue to target the installation business, price competition helps to drive increased adoption of widescreen formats in the 4000 to 6999 lumen market.
The dedicated home cinema market, which typically experiences a slow post-Christmas CY Q1, remained relatively consistent in the period, volumes increasing less than 2% year-onyear, 720P and WXGA models retain their price position in the market maintaining a 33% share.
In the Ultra Mobile segment (sub 2KG projectors) LED models continue to fuel the market, taking share from lamp based models. As the brightness of LED models increases, the B2B applications for these products increase also providing new markets for LED projectors in the road warrior and small meeting room sectors, taking share from lamp based models.
