Author | Zhou Yali
Edit | Shi Yulong
The consumption of this year's young people is becoming more and more psychedelic.
Even if the pockets are empty, they can't resist their enthusiasm and pursuit of projectors.
In the past, young people would struggle with decoration, "what brand of TV to buy". Now more and more young people who rent houses are beginning to struggle, "whether to replace the landlord's TV with a projector."
In one book, nearly 300,000 notes "planted" the younger generation's preference for projectors.
The renewal of science and technology has shaken the hegemony of television for many years. But has the projector ushered in its own era?
Zhao Ting of Nanjing rejected the invitation of friends on New Year's Eve this year, and decided to re-brush "Heartbeat" with her husband on the projection of her new home, lazy sofa, red wine, dog son "Oscar", with projection TV, warm and romantic two-person world.
Zhao Ting is a movie lover, but after the epidemic, she rarely goes to the theater. She chose to watch movies at home, the TV screen was too small, and bought a projector under the Amway of a friend.
The epidemic has changed the scene of people watching movies, but also changed the distribution model of the film side, many Hollywood distributors choose to launch blockbusters on streaming media, and many domestic blockbusters that cannot be released in theaters in 2020 have also come online, and the boom of family movies is in the ascendant.
Like Zhao Ting, many people feel that the size of traditional TVs limits the viewing experience, and they all choose projectors, which drives the popularity of the projector industry.
In the first half of this year, domestic color TV sales were 19.94 million units, down 15.5% year-on-year, while projector sales exceeded 2.312 million units, an increase of 43.3% year-on-year.
Televisions are declining, and projectors are becoming the new favorite, so how big can the imagination of the future projector market be? Who can stand out as an industry unicorn?
The Matthew effect of the projector market
The earliest use of light and shadow technology was the "magic slide" invented in the 17th century by a Jesuit priest called Attanas Cosher, which has since been turned into a toy, and its modern name is the projector.
Later, the projector was mainly a bulky machine placed in the classroom or conference room, which was large in size and the display effect was not ideal.
With the maturity of LED light source technology, the body of the projector is getting smaller and smaller, and the application scenarios are becoming more and more abundant, and gradually moving towards the family.
According to IDC data, projection equipment in the consumer market has gradually become the most important segment of projection equipment, and shipments have shown a rapid growth trend.
In 2017, 2018, 2019 and January-June 2020, China shipped 1.3 million units, 2.27 million units, 2.79 million units and 1.31 million units, respectively.
The average annual compound growth rate from 2017 to 2019 reached 46.5%, accounting for 39.2%, 52.2%, 60.4% and 77.5% of the total shipments of projection equipment in each period, showing a continuous upward trend.
At the same time, it is visible to the naked eye that smart projectors have extended from the original to B market to the to C market.
According to public data, the commercial market for projectors has fallen by 55% year-on-year, and the proportion of the household market has exceeded 60%, which means that projectors have truly entered people's lives.
However, in the past two years, the projector has the essence of popularization, the projection industry seems to have reached a situation of dragons and tigers.
Since 2011, The space of China's projector industry has gradually opened up, and since 2016, it has entered a period of rapid development, with a year-on-year increase of double digits.
According to the data, the sales of projectors on the JD platform and the Tmall platform showed a clear upward trend, especially in the second quarter of 2020.
In June, for example, JD.com's platform projector category sales reached 131,000 units, while tmall platform reached 225,000 units. In July, the Tmall platform surpassed the peak of the second quarter, with sales exceeding 310,000 units.
In terms of the distribution of projection types in 2020, home projectors have undoubtedly become the sales field with the highest proportion, accounting for 48.56%.
In fact, the growth of the household market also mainly comes from the head brand, and innovative household products have become the focus of market success or failure, such as extreme rice, nuts, millet series, Dangbei and other giants of household product lines.
In terms of market share, the top five brands of projectors accounted for more than 43%, of which Jimi accounted for 18.1%, Nuts 10.1%, Epson 8.0%, BenQ 3.7%, and Xiaomi 3.3%.
From the perspective of market share, the head brand has gradually formed. However, under the Matthew effect, Jimi Technology, as the industry leader, has also begun to devour more markets.
Jimi not only won the first place in the domestic projector market shipments and sales in 2020, but also successfully listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board through the Shanghai Stock Exchange on March 3 this year.
To this end, according to the financial report data of Jimi in the first half of this year, the revenue of Jimi Technology was 1.687 billion yuan, an increase of 47.48% year-on-year, the net profit attributable to the mother was 193 million yuan, an increase of 98.06% year-on-year, and the deduction of non-net profit was 178 million yuan, an increase of 96.17% year-on-year.
In the 2021 Tmall official Double Eleven Projector Top 10 Brand Ranking, domestic projector brands Dangbei, Jimi and Nuts ranked in the top 3 respectively.
Among them, Jimi is the only listed company among the consumer projection vertical manufacturers.
So, in a number of projector brands, why is only Jimi so prominent?
First of all, among the top five projector brands, whether it is a 1080P HD projector or a 4K HD projector, Jimi has the highest cost performance.
The second is the SKU advantage of Jimi, although BenQ's SKUs are not many, but the price is often higher than that of Jimi.
In such a market environment, it is clear that the price is suitable, the SKU is relatively rich in jimi has become the choice of more families.
Jimi was listed in March as the "first stock of intelligent projection in China", and since then, the capital activity in the industry has declined.
According to the data of Tianyancha, as of now, there are only 6 projector track investments and financings in 2021; compared with previous years, it has shown a downward trend year by year.
At the same time, nuts, which are considered most likely to be marketed after the pole rice, are currently not moving further. Its parent company, Huole Technology, has not had a new round of financing since it completed a series E financing of hundreds of millions of yuan invested by Broad Venture Capital in May 2020.
The projector market is hot, but it has not formed a clear advantage of ladder branding, and the future pattern is full of uncertainty.
Laser light source technology sinks, and the product categories are clearly distinguished
According to the data of Tianyancha, there are currently 12,000 existing "projector" related enterprises in China.
Compared with the ancient projector of the traditional lamp light source, the current intelligent projection has undergone earth-shaking changes in both hardware and software:
In the first half of 2021, the home market capacity of LED light sources exceeded 1.48 million units, an increase of 26% year-on-year. Jimi is in the lead, with a market share of more than 26%. Nuts, Dangbei, millet and Changhong are in the second camp.
The bulb home console market sold nearly 87,000 units, up 57% year-on-year, a sharp recovery, but still lower than the same period in 2019. Epson's share reached a record high of 47%.
The household laser products market increased 18% year-on-year to 109,000 units. Hisense, Fengmi, Changhong, Xiaomi and Dangbei won the top five. Hisense has a market share of 42% in the field of laser machines.
However, it should be noted that the current market is mainly divided into two major light sources, one is an LED light source, the other is a laser light source, which is basically the same as the TV in terms of service life (more than 30,000 hours). The advantage of laser light source lies in high brightness performance, and the advantage of LED light source is inexpensive characteristics.
However, in the current market, LED light sources account for the highest proportion.
According to the "Home Projection Market Tracking Report for the First Half of 2021" released by IDC, the data shows that in the projector market, LED light source products account for 88%, and laser light source products account for only 7%.
But even so, there are still brands that have brought laser light sources to the sinking market.
In the spring of 2021, Dangbei took the lead in releasing laser intelligent projection products, creating a precedent for laser light sources to be "hard" in the intelligent projection category and led light sources.
Since the middle of the year, including more projection brands, such as Fengmi, Epson, Xiaomi, etc. to further layout this subdivision of the market, Seemera has launched a variety of laser micro-projection machine products at IFC, covering a complete "application scenario" from nearly 2,000 lumens to 4,000 lumens, from fixed focus to zoom, and from ultra-short throw reflex to telephoto.
According to the latest "Chinese mainland Laser Projection Market Analysis Quarterly Report" released by RUNTO, the third quarter of 2021 Chinese mainland laser projection market shipments were 173,000 units, an increase of 34% year-on-year.
From the first three quarters, the Chinese mainland laser projection market shipments reached 409,000 units, an increase of 55% over the same period last year.
After receiving intensive attention from investment and industry, laser projection technology is becoming a fast-growing track.
However, with the continuous maturity of laser light sources, miniaturization, miniaturization and low cost are inevitable trends; LED light sources continue to progress, brightness continues to increase, and then prices also rise, which is also an inevitable law.
The second half of the projector industry
B station up the main @ donkey horse planet, bought more than a dozen projectors at different price points for testing, from 1000+ to 8000+.
In the state of natural light, only the most expensive Epson tw5800 and Dangbei X3 can see some micro-pictures, and the rest are basically white.
△ Screenshot from B station up master @ Donkey Planet
Up Master also tested the quality of the curtains closed during the day.
In the case of curtain shading, most cheap projectors are just as popular as the street. Projectors of about 5,000 and above are working very hard and struggling to interpret "what you pay for" means.
Why do most projectors hit the street in natural light during the day? Because the brightness is limited.
Brightness is also a very important indicator of the projector, which directly determines whether you can directly see the projection during the day.
Therefore, when the LED light source and the laser light source reach a certain balance point, the choice of light source by some projector brands will also enter a dilemma.
First of all, for the brand that started with LED light source products, the cost performance and product line are in a relatively stable state, if you add laser light source products on the basis of LED light source products, it is necessary to consider certain income risks.
The reason is simple, the original laser light source brand occupies most of the engineering, office meetings, education and even some home investment markets.
Secondly, in turn, when the LED light source and the laser light source are at the same price point, for the laser light source brand, since the LED light source product has excellent color expression, ultra-long service life and extremely low energy consumption, but also to improve their own SKU, it must be a good choice.
In fact, in this way, the market share of the main LED light source product brand will also be affected.
At present, the projector market is still expanding, according to IDC forecast, by 2025 China projector market shipments
It will exceed 9 million units.
Among the 12,000 projector companies, more than 60% of the projector companies were established within 5 years, of which, in 2018, the projector-related enterprises added the largest number of new registrations, with a growth rate of nearly 2,000, with a growth rate of 31%, It is clear that under the premise of increasing market size, a large amount of capital will also step into the projector market.
This means that when the home scene is gradually full, it will be necessary to find new application scenarios.
In addition, in 2020, the China Consumer Association also issued a test report, which detected that a variety of projectors have problems such as inconsistent standards, chaotic performance labeling, and unqualified projection lighting efficiency, if they cannot effectively solve the industry chaos and standardize product quality, it will also affect the development of the entire industry.
The lack of industry standards not only makes projector manufacturers unable to develop and manufacture products in accordance with unified technical specifications, but also affects the shopping experience of consumers, and ultimately damages the long-term development of the entire industry.
But as long as the industry develops well, capital will continue to be injected, and many problems will eventually be solved.
For Zhao Ting, she did not consider it at all, she just felt that when she returned home at night, turned on the projection, the clear and realistic picture, and the comfortable environment of being able to lie flat in the bedroom, this investment was worth it.