The upper half year of 2019 has passed. After the “618” e-commerce war, the intelligent projector market now sees clearer and more definite development momentum and industry prospect. It can be almost confirmed that China’s intelligent projector market has officially entered the era of warlords.

Based on the data of 2018, China’s color TV saw an annual sales volume of about 50 million, almost reaching the peak. The estimate on the sales volume of 2019 was about 4.15 million (2,612,000 in 2018). Obviously, we underestimated the development speed of intelligent projector.    

With the development of China’s urbanization, a massive number of young people born after 1990 or 2000 that flock into first-tier and second-tier cities are mostly house renters. This group of consumers has significantly different demand for audio and video products from previously prevailing migrant workers. Thanks to the Internet accessibility, large size, high visual quality, and portability of smart projectors, the young house renters tend to take smart projector as the first choice instead of traditional TVs when they buy their first domestic film and television terminal. Meanwhile, the original urban middle class also has a great demand in replacing their traditional TV with a smart projector.      

Today, China’s intelligent projector market can be divided into four fundamental categories:

1. Transformed traditional projector manufacturers like Optoma, BenQ, Epson, Sony, and NEC have considerable advantages in hardware attainment, but tend to suffer from setbacks in terms of their software and Internet service. They are still superior in the high-end commercial projector market and hold a certain amount of market share in the medium-grade domestic projector market.       

2. Emerging intelligent projector enterprises, as represented by XGimi, JmGO and MIUI, among which XGimi and JmGO are typical startups in the field of intelligent projectors, founded in 2013 and 2011 respectively. With years of experience in the industry, both firms now enjoy large market share. MIUI, as an emerging 3C enterprise of China, gradually marches into intelligent projector market after MIUI TV became a success;       

3. Transformed electronic enterprises, especially those based in Shenzhen, are represented by HTP, RUISHIDA, VMAI, Xshuai, EJIALE, and DI TONG. The large number of cheap projection products sold on Pinduoduo are dominated by products of those brands. Massive products of such unknown brands are also sold on Taobaoand JD. Products of such brands are normally integrated within a relatively short development time frame by relying on mature hardware and software schemes, and are sold to medium- and low-end markets all over China.   

4. The last category are the extended businesses of Internet firms like Tmall, Tencent, and Dangbei. Alibaba and Tencent are two of China’s top Internet firms that own a big voice in the thriving cultural recreation industry. They launched Tmall magic screen andTencentJiguang projectors respectively in 2018. Now, they are constantly diversifying their product lines. Dangbei.com, however, is a newly-emerging brand of intelligent projector in 2019. It used to be the biggest application market in the OTT sector and a smart TV forum and information service provider. It launched a high-end smart projector with independent intellectual property rights i.e. Dangbei Projector F1, at the beginning of 2019, and released D1, C1, and other types of intelligent projector product series during the “618” e-commerce war in 2019.         

According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 170 intelligent projector brands in mainland China, most of which belong to the third category. It is expected that the industry will enter a period of “major shuffling” after the sales volume of intelligent projector devices exceeds that of TV by 10% in late 2019 or early 2020.

Based on the Action Plan for the Development of Ultra-HD Display Sector (2019-2022) co-issued by MIIT and SARFT on March 1, 2019, the overall size of China’s Ultra-HD display sector will reach 4 trillion yuan in 2022. Numerous “unicorn-enterprises” are expected to emerge in the industry and become the next-generation suppliers of household recreational center services in the country populated by 1.4 billion people.