"Spent thousands of dollars on an idle item." Talking about the smart projector at home, Xiaobai (a pseudonym) said roast. She originally wanted to improve the living standard of her parents in her hometown so that they can enjoy the experience of the cinema at home. But to her surprise, it seems that the projector has been eating ash since it was turned on only once.
In fact, this experience is more than Xiaobai. In a Weibo survey recently launched by Sina Technology, nearly 40% of netizens said that the projector is a little chicken ribs and has been eating ash at home for a long time.
In terms of shipments, projectors are still a niche market in China. IDC data show that in 2021, China's household projector shipments were only 3.48 million. According to the data of e-commerce platform, the purchase users of projectors are mainly young people in first and second tier cities.
Although the market needs to be popularized, the competition among projector manufacturers is very fierce. Behind the mainstream players in the market such as Jimi, nuts and fengmi are giants such as Baidu, Alibaba, oppo and Xiaomi.
Sina Technology found that projector manufacturers such as micro whale and elovi have been closed down. Fans of these manufacturers are facing the embarrassing situation of having no access to after-sales services.
"Never opened it again"
The rise of projector manufacturers (household intelligent projection products) began with the concept of screen less TV.
Taking Jimi technology, which currently has the highest market share in China, as an example, just caught up with this concept. Its initially released products are also benchmarking TVs in terms of image quality, hardware and so on.
"Thousands of yuan can move a smart home theater home." After work or on weekends, you can enjoy watching movies and entertainment on the 100 inch screen. The beautiful scenes publicized by projector manufacturers have attracted a large number of young people.
Xiaobai is one of them.
She told Sina technology that in 2021, when her hometown's house was renovated, she chose the projector between the TV and the projector. "I want my parents to feel like they can watch a movie while lying down at home." She said that she also gave her parents a detailed introduction to how to use the projector, but later she found that her parents had never opened it again.
The original idea of replacing TV completely failed. In her opinion, the projector is indeed a bit of a chicken rib for users. The projector with low price has poor image quality, and the eyes will be very uncomfortable after a long time; The projector with good picture quality is almost as expensive as high-end TV, which lacks advantages.
In addition, the projector also has great restrictions on the use scene, such as light. If you watch it during the day, you have to pull the curtains; Another example is mobility. The manufacturer advertises that you can watch movies outdoors for leisure, but in fact, the battery life without plug-in is very poor, and even the experience of a movie cannot be guaranteed.
Another projector user Li Wei (a pseudonym) also shared his experience of eating gray on the projector.
"I'm a little regretful. I haven't used the projector several times since I bought it. I've been eating ash at home. Let alone the projector, the TV is rarely used when I'm busy."
Before buying it, he imagined that he could lie in bed and watch movies every day; After I bought it, I was too busy to use it because of my busy work. "In fact, I found that the most frequently used is mobile phones, such as projectors. Before buying, you can consider whether there is a real demand, otherwise you will eat ash when you buy it back."
Core components are still "stuck"
In 2020, Jimi projector appeared in the live broadcast room in the live broadcast debut of hammer technology founder Luo Yonghao, and the CEO of Jimi also helped in person. However, it was embarrassing that in the process of introducing the projector, Luo Yonghao mistakenly called the Jimi projector a nut projector, and later had to apologize again and again.
The low user awareness of the projector brand can be seen.
In the Weibo survey launched by Sina Technology, more than 48% of netizens said they had not bought a projector and had no demand; Only 16% of netizens said they often use projectors, which has formed an alternative role to TV.
From the perspective of shipments, projectors are indeed a niche market.
According to the "tracking report on China's projector market in the fourth quarter of 2021" released by IDC recently, the total shipment of China's projector market in 2021 was 4.7 million units. Among them, the shipment of household projectors was 3.48 million, a year-on-year increase of 16%; Sales exceeded 12.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.3%.
If compared with TV, according to the report released by ovicloud, the retail volume of China's color TV market in 2021 was 38.35 million units. This means that the current market volume of projectors is only about 12% of that of TVs.
The user population of the projector is also very small.
According to the data of e-commerce platform, post-95 consumers in first and second tier cities prefer projectors, mainly because young consumers have a high acceptance of new things. At the same time, the projectors are equipped with streaming media content platform, which is more in line with the viewing habits of young consumers.
On the whole, the penetration rate of projectors in the third and fourth tier cities is still relatively low. It is necessary to further deepen consumers' cognition and further open the market through the layout of online channels + offline stores.
However, compared with the shrinking color TV market, the advantage of the projector is that it is in the stage of incremental market. According to IDC's forecast, based on the shipment of 3.48 million household projectors in 2021, the compound growth rate of the projector market will still exceed 17% in 2026, and the sales volume of China's projector market is expected to exceed 10 million in 2026.
The growth of the projector market also needs to be optimized in terms of cost and price.
It is reported that at present, the mainstream consumer projection equipment of Jimi technology adopts DLP projection technology, and the core patents of DLP projection technology are in the hands of Texas Instruments. One of the core components of the projector, the display chip, is also monopolized by Texas Instruments at a high price.
According to the financial data of Jimi technology, its direct material cost accounts for more than 96% of the operating cost. In the future, Chinese manufacturers need to continue to make efforts in some key components and underlying technologies.
Star products, no after-sales door?
Although at present, the projector is still a niche market, the market competition is not fierce.
According to IDC data, the top five domestic projector markets in China in 2021 were Jimi (27%), nut (9%), fengmi (5%), dangbei (4%) and Xiaomi (3%).
Among them, Jimi has landed on the science and innovation board in 2021, becoming the first share of domestic intelligent projection. It has won the investment of mango cultural innovation and Baidu, and also has the content blessing of mango media and iqiyi. According to its financial data, Beijing Baidu Netcom Technology Co., Ltd. holds 8.28%, ranking the second largest shareholder.
Nut announced in 2018 that it had obtained the round D financing of 600 million yuan led by Alibaba. In March this year, it announced that it had completed a round of pre IPO Financing with a scale of 1 billion yuan and introduced a new investor oppo; Behind dangbei is the investment of Suning Heshun capital; Fengmi is a Xiaomi ecological chain enterprise jointly established by Guangfeng technology and Xiaomi.
Internet companies, content service providers and mobile phone manufacturers are all competing fiercely in the market with an annual shipment of only millions of units.
It is worth noting that some players have lost in the competition and fell on the eve of the market outbreak.
Among them are micro whale, an Internet TV manufacturer once as famous as LETV and storm. Micro whale was founded in 2015, led by Chinese culture holding, with Alibaba and Tencent participating in the investment. At first, it mainly focused on smart TV products, focusing on the mode of content subsidizing hardware, but it didn't take long to get into trouble.
In 2018, micro whale restructured, began to enter the field of intelligent hardware and launched intelligent projection products. But Sina Technology found that the micro whale, which turned from TV to projector, seemed to be in a dilemma again. Sina Technology saw on the official website of Weijing that its TV and projector products are out of stock, and none of its Jingdong self operated flagship store is in stock.
The update of micro whale and micro whale projection official micro has stayed in 2020. "I want to decorate my house. I want to buy another micro whale TV, but I can't find it. The original company went bankrupt. It's a pity." A user commented on the wechat official wechat.
It's not just the micro whale that fell.
Elovi is a brand of intelligent projection and laser TV. It once landed on the new third board, won the investment of well-known singer group "Yuquan", and reached a cooperation with Xiaomi. However, it is embarrassing that it has been in a state of loss for many years. In 2019, it was terminated by the new third board because it failed to disclose its annual report according to the specified time.
Later, many elove users found that they could not find the stores and products of the enterprise in Taobao and jd.com. "Now that the enterprises have closed down, where can we repair our products?" An elowi user said helplessly to Sina Technology.