April PM Released

Our April issue of Projection Monthly is now in the hands of our subscribers, and the 111 pages this month include highlights from three display industry events that took place in March: The USDC / Needham Investors Conference held in NY, the ShoWest national theater owners conference and expo in Las Vegas, and the HDTV Summit held in Washington DC. We combed the show floors, sat in the sessions and wrote up the reports on what we found.

At the USDC, Chris Chinnock covered a good display industry recap given by Bob O'Donnell of IDC in a keynote speech. Bob highlighted the results from a recent IDC study focusing first on consumer awareness of TV technology and next on consumer preferences in technology, size, channel and brands.

O'Donnell identified some interesting trends. In consumer TV size preference for instance, 30% of consumers surveyed wanted TVs in the 20 to 29-inch range and 29% wanted TVs 40 to 49-inch sets. The average size preference, commented O'Donnell was 42-inches. Another interesting trend was the move from vertical to horizontal integration for LCD and PDP-TV makers. IDC cited Syntax, a Taiwanese company that in the last year, bolted ahead of Sony in LCD-TV sales, coming from obscurity to claim a top five spot. Syntax sources all components for the LCD-TV and focuses on marketing and distribution only. Such sourcing is enabling second and third tier brands to offer low cost LCD and PDP-TVs, but this has not yet been the case with MD-RPTVs. But maturity is now coming to enable this next phase in the MD-RPTV segment, we think.

Featured in this issue of Projection Monthly are six other stories from the conference with updates on InFocus, Barco, SpatiaLight, Brillian, Silicon Optix and Displaytech. Don't miss this comprehensive conference coverage.

At ShoWest, we ventured to Las Vegas to meet with the big names in cinema projection including Sony, Christie Digital, Barco, NEC and Panasonic. While new projection systems were unveiled, highlighted by Sony's 4K projector (that's 4096 x 2160 native pixel resolution) based on its new SXRD technology, we sensed a changing of the guard at the show. The cinema industry is now increasingly being driven by in-theater advertising and non-cinematic digital projection systems. Such in-theater advertising is common in other parts of the world, but it is new in the US, and the industry is embracing it - but will consumers?

Other innovations are underway too. For example, we found a company at the show called BigScreen Digital touting a new business model for theater owners. The company promises a no-cost path to digital projection, using ad dollars to pay for the equipment-some restrictions apply. There was also a new interactive digital display technology we uncovered called Reactrix, with some very interesting (playful) applications from retail to immersive environments.

Nevertheless, Sony wowed attendees after wisely re-mastering some famous film clips to show-off the potential of 4000 lines of resolution on the screen - double the resolution of existing DLP based 2K cinema projectors. The results were stunning. Plus, the company also announced an agreement with Landmark Theaters to deploy the new units in a web conference-call with Landmark's co-owner, Mark Cuban. Reports were also filed on happenings with the other cinema projector manufacturers, partnership and distribution agreements.

The HDTV Summit report was filed by Aldo Cugnini. He submitted an article on the coming "Spectrum Wars" coined from a talk given by Drew Clark of the LA Times. There was a lively discussion on the allocation of bandwidth once analog broadcasters move to digital. Topics ranged from new public safety services like wireless video feeds for firefighters at the scene of a disaster to Qualcomm's new multimedia cell phone service, "Mediaflo" allowing subscribers to keep up with the latest news on CNN or the happenings on the daily "soaps".

Another Summit highlight was the industry analyst session on HDTV Sales Forecast. Representatives from Forrester, CEA, DisplaySearch and TV Predictions all weighed in on the current state of the HDTV product market, and what lies ahead. The session teemed with comments on display technology including: "The projection television market has saturated, but flat technologies have given new life to the product" stated Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research." Sean Wargo of CEA made the point that enhanced-definition (ED) LCD displays of less than 27 inches will probably not survive for long, given the better resolutions now available.

Ross Young of DisplaySearch turned the discussion to Japanese manufacturers saying they are about to kill ED-plasma (possibly in two years). This is due, in part, to growing competition from HD LCD, which will eventually come in larger sizes. He predicts that CRTs will continue to be available until they become half the price of similar LCDs - and then, the CRT market will collapse.

In looking to barriers to rapid growth, several panelists made the point that consumer confusion is perhaps the biggest hurdle. Phil Swann of TV Predictions said that the DTV transition is confusing or unknown to consumers - a situation made worse by "salesmen incompetence."

Beyond specific DTV products, the group also took a stab at overall DTV growth. Bernoff predicts 16M HD households in 2005, growing to 50M by 2009. Wargo says that DTV product penetration into the home is now 15%, and he expects 25% by the end of the year. Of this, products with DTV tuners currently account for 4%, growing to 13% in the same time frame. Young's figures agree with these numbers, showing 7M HD households in 2004, growing to 14M in 2005.

Past the conference reports, this month's issue features some extensive market intelligence coverage including new data on LCD panel demand. For instance, DisplaySearch raised its 2005 forecast of global demand for large panels from 167M to 173M-but says prices will continue to drop around 5% by June. Of this, the lion's share of growth came in the LCD-TV category where 16M units originally estimated by DisplaySearch in June of '04, went up almost 7% to 17.1M for 2005. In '04 LCD-TV demand reached 3.8M panels, that's a 23% quarter on quarter increase instead of the 11% originally forecasted by DisplaySearch.

Of course revenue was a different story and you can read about this as well as other key data points including regional and manufacturer break out information, all in this month's issue.

We also covered a comprehensive story on DisplayBank who issued LCD-PDP panel price gap data including a cost structure chart comparing 42-inch ED and HD plasma with a 42-inch LCD panel. The data shows a $1150 cost premium of HD LCD over HD PDP. DisplayBank predicts that number will shrink to $400 by the end of 2005 giving step-values along the way.

There was also some surprising cost vs selling price information from DisplayBank. The total cost of a 42-inch PDP panel is $847, while the selling price is $840, resulting in a loss of $7 per unit. LCDs are currently loosing $67 a unit with a cost of $2167 and selling price of $2100.

The DisplayBank article also includes a telling Demand vs. Real Supply chart that tracks the % of panel glut from Q1'04 to Q4'05. This is a roller coaster ride of peaks and valleys through out the period ending 2005 with a forecasted glut of around 3% from a high in Q2'04 of around 10%. The demand moves from 31M units at the beginning of the period to over 48M by the end of 2005. DisplayBank expects LCD-TV demand to be at 55.8M units by 2009 up from 8M units in 2004 with a CAGR of 47.4% for the period. (We were pleased to see these numbers are in line with the analysts at the USDC reported above).

And, there is a lot more, as usual. This month's issue includes 140+ timely stories, all organized into over 30 sub-sections for easy review and reference. And, if you are a subscriber, you can build a library of past issues that is key word searchable - a very valuable research tool.

Projection Monthly is a subscription-based newsletter that covers the entire big-screen display industry, including all technologies, markets and applications - from the supply chain through the distribution channel. If you would like to evaluate a sample copy of Projection Monthly, please contact Dave Torromeo, 203-831-8464, dave@insightmedia.info

About Insight Media
Insight Media (www.insightmedia.info) is a full-service market research company specializing in microdisplay-based products in the projection and near-to-eye segments. It tracks the full supply chain, finished products and distribution of these microdisplay-based products through its various newsletters, technology reports, forecasts, conferences and custom consulting activities. Headquartered in Norwalk, CT, Insight Media has a core of analysts and associates to cover the microdisplay industry in a comprehensive manner.