Pacific Media Raises New Era Projector Forecasts

Revised forecasts predict nearly 8 million units in 2011

November 7, 2007

Pacific Media Associates, the global market information experts on large-screen displays, has revised its worldwide forecasts for New Era front projector products. Unit shipments are expected to total less than 50,000 units this year, but that will grow rapidly to nearly 8 million units by 2011, with revenues topping $1.5 billion. “New Era” front projector products include inexpensive projectors with less than 500 lumen light output, which is significantly less than the portable and fixed installation projectors that make up the traditional front projector market. Pacific Media divides these new projectors into two large groups. Gaming and Personal projectors are compact models that are used with gaming consoles and devices other than personal computers. Mini-Projectors include miniature projectors that can either be in a docking module or embedded in a portable device such as a cell phone. “This portion of the projector industry is going to go from zero to 60 in record time,” according to William Coggshall, President of Pacific Media Associates. “However, the potentially high return in the New Era categories is accompanied by a high risk of both technology evolution and market acceptance, and the current leaders in the "Classic" (500+ lumens) portion are currently sitting on the sidelines, while a bunch of upstarts are being drawn to these opportunities, bringing innovative technologies and designs to their products. These new, tiny projectors are generating a lot of excitement both inside and out of the industry.” New Era projector products are poised to appear in the market. Several companies are readying stand-alone or docking mini-projector models for mobile phones, while others are focused on embedding their entries in mobile or larger host devices. Among the most pointed developments foreseen by the PMA analysis are: • The choice of imager chips looks to broaden from the oligopoly of 3LCD and DLP to include LCOS and single-pixel MOEMS scanning chips; • Lasers and LEDs will duke it out for illumination; and • Holographic approaches, claiming speckle reduction and other advantages, are taking on more conventional designs.

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