12.05.14
Worldwide projector market tops 2 million in Q1
New analysis from PMA Research has found that the total volume of the worldwide projector market topped 2 million in the first quarter of 2014 with most countries registering year-on-year growth.
In the U.S. market, sales of interactive projectors and short-throw projectors registered a double-digit increase over last year’s Q1, which has been put down to a rise in primary and secondary education sales of short-throw and standard projectors.
In Europe, widescreen resolutions climbed to another high in share during the first quarter, and represented 40% of the volume mix within the mainstream and high-end segments.
This has been attributed to increasing penetration of lower-priced 1080p and wide XGA projectors within corporate and education markets, and a continued shift to widescreen in the high-end projector market.
Although widescreen penetration is much lower in Asia, the overall projector market improved again on a year/year basis. In the mainstream and high-end segments, China registered a third straight quarter of double-digit gains. However, more buoyant growth in China has recently shifted from short-throw projectors to value-priced SVGA and XGA standard-throw projectors.
Elsewhere in Asia, the troubled economy in India continued to negatively impact the projector market while sales in Japan registered their sharpest year-on-year increase in many quarters ahead of April’s higher value-added tax.
In the digital cinema market, first-quarter sales pushed cumulative worldwide shipments over 120,000. While high digitisation rates continued to impact sales in advanced countries, China and Latin America continued to outperform the market thanks in large part to more economical models helping exhibitors in these countries make the digital transition.