Futuresource Consulting reports that worldwide shipments of front projectors grew reasonably year-on-year by 6% to 2.12 million units in CYQ4 2013, representing $2.63 billion in value In 2013, EMEA quarterly performance in CYQ4 posted a 4% year-on-year volume growth to reach 702,000 units, but this wasn’t enough to offset the year-on-year decline of 6%.
Eastern Europe enjoyed the greatest year-on-year quarterly growth where 151,000 units were shipped during CYQ4 2013, a 12% increase from the year before. The end of a temporary diversion of government funding for infrastructure for the 2014 Winter Olympics allowed Russia to resume its high sell-in volumes, with a total of 780,300 units shipped – a 10% year-on-year increase.
Most of this volume went into the education sector and high sell-in is expected to continue for the short term – politics allowing. EU member states in Eastern Europe also enjoyed growth not only due to the Q4 retail period but also as a result of using up the remainder of their 2007-2013 EU budget.
With 412,000 units shipped during CYQ4 2013, Western Europe also enjoyed an overall year-on-year growth of 3%, largely due to strong retail sales in France and Germany, whose markets had year-on-year increases of 8% and 9% respectively. Spain also had its best sell-in since 2011 with 33,900 projectors being shipped during the last quarter of 2013. A reduced sell-in to the UK’s under-represented retail market for projectors saw the country experience a 5% year-on-year decline in total sales in the final quarter.
The Middle East and Africa saw only modest growth in CYQ4 2013 with 139,000 units shipped, a 1% year-on-year growth. This was due to education projects in Saudi Arabia and UAE failing to come to fruition. However, the MEA region remains a strong opportunity long term due to its low penetration.
