Indian projector mkt to touch Rs 300 cr

Mumbai: Buoyed by a strong buying in education and ITES/BPO segments, clubbed with rapidly-falling prices, the Indian projector market is all set to go well-past the Rs 300 crore-mark in the current fiscal. Industry sources estimate this market size (in unit terms) to be between 12,000 and 15,000 for 2003-04 and are expecting it to grow at 40 percent -50 percent in the coming fiscal. 

"We believe that in 2004, at least 20,000 units would get sold taking revenues to over Rs 300 crore," said Philips India marketing manager (creative display systems) Harshad Awasare. Currently, DQCI estimates this figure to be around Rs 225 crore. 

Almost all leading projector vendors attribute this high growth to a burgeoning education and ITES/BPO business. "There are over 13,000 post-graduate colleges in the country and most of them find a projector a very efficient tool for information dissemination," remarked HP India country category manager (digital imaging products) Barkha Deva. Though a new entrant, HP is already betting big on its range of Digital Light Projectors (DLP). 

In the education sector, engineering and management colleges are the most significant buyers of projection devices. Also given the large number of manpower being recruited by call centers, projectors have become an indispensable tool for their training needs. 






"A 1,000-seater call center would require anywhere between 15 to 30 projectors, as an instructional tool for training new employees," informed Sharp Business Systems national business manager (LCD products) Arun Pujari. According to him, with prices having dropped by over 50 percent over last three years, many corporate buyers are today opting for more than one projectors for their organization. Arun is betting on at least 35 percent growth in the coming fiscal and so does Deva. 


The entry-level projectors, which until about a year ago used to cost upwards of Rs 1.5 lakh are now available in the region of Rs one lakh. Similarly, even high-end projectors can be bought for about Rs three lakh as against Rs four lakh - Rs 4.5 lakh price-points earlier. 

While the overall duty incidence on projectors still continues to be around 40 percent, vendors feel that the market would witness a boom with duty structures expected to get rationalized by 2005. "Once price-points reach Rs 50K-Rs 60K, this segment could even record three-digit growth," remarked Pujari. 

However, with over 20 vendors present in this arena, the competition is only bound to get fiercer. While no organized study has been done on this market segment by any market research agency, Philips claims to command a maximum marketshare of 18 percent, citing a survey by ORG-MARG. Among other leading players are Sharp, InFocus, Sanyo, etc. and new-entrant HP. While most of these companies have been traditionally maintaining a distinct channel for projector business, now they are aggressively roping in IT channel players too. 

(CyberMedia News Service)