Menlo Park, California, USA – March 24, 2011. Pacific Media Associates (PMA), the worldwide market information experts on front projectors, has just released their latest updated forecast of the worldwide front projector market. PMA estimates that the 8.5 million units sold during 2010 will increase to more than 39 million units during 2015. The forecast includes all projectors, from tiny pico projectors used as companion devices for mobile gadgets to the brightest projectors found in high-end corporate settings, home theaters, and digital cinemas.

“The strong continued growth of the projector business is due to the large variety of ways projection technology can be used to produce pictures that are many times larger than the projector itself, whether they are T-shirt sized images produced from a tiny projection module embedded in a mobile phone or giant cinema-screen pictures produced from a box one-quarter the size of a Smart Car,” said Dr. William Coggshall, President of Pacific Media Associates. “Projectors deliver the most display area per dollar of any display technology. With the continuing evolution of multiple projection technologies and associated improvements in brightness and picture quality, projectors are being used for a growing variety of buyer types and applications.”

PMA divides the industry into three brightness ranges, each associated with its own set of buyer types and applications: New Era (under 500 lumens), Mainstream (500 to 4999 lumens), and High-End (5000 or more lumens).

The New Era range comprises a wide variety of configurations, from tiny modules embedded in mobile or large host devices, to stand-alone toys or pico projectors, to larger and brighter personal models. All of the products (including the tiny optical engines used in embedded devices) are small and low-priced, and a large fraction of the buyers are individual consumers. Because it is the newest, and the rate of innovation is highest, the New Era range is expected to grow from about 1 million units in 2010 to about 27 million units in 2015, a compound annual growth rate of 90%.

The Mainstream range comprises models of types that have been used for many years in classrooms and corporations. These projectors range in size from ones small enough to be carried by road warriors to ones that are mounted on a ceiling or a wall. This range also includes the fast-growing interactive projectors and ultra-short-throw projectors The Mainstream range is expected to grow from about 7 million units in 2010 to about 11.5 million units in 2015, a compound annual growth rate of 10%.

The High-End range comprises models intended for showing giant-sized images to large audiences in auditoriums, theaters, and other large spaces as well as for simulation and visualization applications. The High-End range is expected to grow from about 165,000 units in 2010 to about 400,000 units in 2015, a compound annual growth rate of 19%.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
William Coggshall, +1 650-561-9020, coggshall@pacificmediaassociates.com

About Pacific Media Associates

Pacific Media specializes in worldwide front projector market information, including New Era (sub-500 lumens), Mainstream (500-4999 lumens), and High-End (5000+ lumens) categories. Their Industry Service family of publications provides detailed worldwide quarterly updates (sell-in data and forecasts) on front projector markets, newsletters on new products and other key industry developments, and biennial Web surveys of North American dealers and end users (including organizations and individual consumers). Their Tracking Service family of monthly reports offers timely sell-through data and analysis on unit sales, true volume-weighted street prices, and inventories of front projectors sold by leading North American retailers, resellers, and distributors. Pacific Media Associates was established- by Dr. William Coggshall, who was a co-founder of Dataquest and helped start the syndicated high-tech market information business.

Pacific Media Associates is headquartered at:
1060 Siskiyou Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Tel. 650-561-9020. Fax 650-561-9019.
www.pacificmediaassociates.com