Epson to rev up home projector market

PHUKET: With an eye on consumer's increasing hunger for advanced home entertainment solutions, Epson has bolstered its home projector portfolio. Named as the Dreamio series, the range of home projectors is built on the company's proprietary 3LCD technology and incorporate features like wireless and PC-less projection.

The company displayed the various technology features at its recent conference at Thailand and believes that with a convergence inevitable in the home entertainment space, projectors will find a strong buyer demand. Epson's impetus in this direction is a part of its '3i' strategy, with projectors being an integral part of its technology offering in the space of 'imaging on screen'. The other i's as earlier outlined by the organization are imaging on paper and imaging on glass.

According to the company, its main focus will be on its EMP TW200H and EMP-S1H models and would be targeting education sector as well for these products. "With broadband penetration increasing and more and more content getting digitized, the demand for high-quality color images and hence these projectors too will increase," said Seiko Epson Corporation, LCD product planning, General Manager, Akira Suzuki.

The home projector market in 2004 increased to 19,000 units in APAC (excluding Japan) from 15,000 in 2003. According to research firm, DTC, this number is expected to increase five-folds in 2005 to over one-lakh units and nearly two lakh units in 2006.

Epson currently commands nearly 17 percent market share worldwide in the home projector and 11.6 percent in the business projector space. At its regional conference, the company also asserted the superiority of the 3LCD technology over DLP.



Quoting DTC, the company officials pointed out that 3LCD currently occupies nearly 70 percent market share in the overall projector business as compared to 30 percent by DLP.