Market research firm Pacific Media Associates (PMA) of Menlo Park, Calif. released a study that shows worldwide professional and consumer front projector shipments during 2005 rose by 17 per cent to more than 4.1 million.
Shipments for the last quarter of 2005 reached 1,219,000 units, which was nearly 20 per cent higher than the fourth quarter of 2004 and it beat the previous quarterly high set in the third quarter of 2005.
PMA vice-president, Michael Abramson said 2005 saw innovative consumer products come to market, such as the first pocket projector and instant theater models with build-in DVDs. The market also saw the introduction of higher-performance 720p models as well as the first of many attractively-priced 1080p models.
In the professional market, the news was more than just XGA breaking the US$1,000 barrier. In 2005 the industry saw the beginnings of a shift toward even higher resolution with more affordable, portable SXGA+ projectors as well as the burgeoning market for 1080p digital cinema projectors.
Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) led the world with about 43 per cent of the industry’s fourth quarter’s worldwide shipments. The fourth quarter is traditionally the strongest quarter of the year in EMEA, but it also benefited from continued economic improvement in Western Europe. That helped the professional projector market show strong sequential gains in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Growth in Eastern Europe and the Mid-East was particularly robust during the fourth quarter.
In the Americas, a large tender in Mexico helped the region register the highest annual growth in the world. In the U.S. market, strong holiday sell-in of instant theater projectors and enhanced 720p models drove the market to an all-time quarterly high in shipments of widescreen projectors.
And in Asia, sales of consumer models in Japan helped lead the region to another quarter of overall double-digit growth. Sales of professional projectors in China eased somewhat from the record-setting pace set in the third quarter. But the country still finished the year with impressive growth that vaulted it to the number two country for projectors behind the United States.