"In the 618 promotion season, audio-visual products ushered in a nearly double-digit decline in sales." Industry insiders are not satisfied with the industry's performance in the 2024 618 shopping season. Although smart projection products are an "emerging audio-visual category", they have not escaped the fate of falling volume and price.
The quadruple cycle is superimposed, and the sales of smart projection are not good
That is, in 2023, after the news of negative growth in the smart projection industry for the first time, this 618 shopping season is another "more serious" blow to the confidence of quantity and energy. Why does a rookie category suddenly encounter growth difficulties? This is mainly due to the superposition effect of the 4-fold cycle.
The first is the macroeconomic cycle, which is currently at a relatively low point. In particular, the domestic real estate cycle and the international dollar and euro interest rate hike cycle are superimposed, which has suppressed the money-making effect of many enterprises. Audio-visual products, including smart projection screens, belong to "real estate" related categories, and often the peak of real estate and decoration is the peak of product procurement.
Second, the "god-making" ability of the e-commerce shopping season is also fading. For example,In the annual market of color TV products,The proportion of direct sales of e-commerce has reached 8%; Indirectly provided information and comparison services affect at least 95% of sales. ——On these two data, the smart projection category will only be higher. This means that the growth of the audio-visual category in the e-commerce market has entered the saturation, maturity and high dependence stage, and its sales volume is highly positively correlated with the fluctuation of the e-commerce shopping season itself.
It is reported that this year's 618 e-commerce shopping season has a 7% decline in sales across the network. After deducting factors such as poor macro consumption and more tragic price wars, in fact, the 2024 e-commerce shopping season has entered the stage of "fading the gods". That is, consumers have become accustomed to e-commerce and the shopping season; The consumer enthusiasm and substantial product concessions that can be driven by the shopping season have been greatly reduced; Consumers' dependence on the shopping season has decreased throughout the year, and the annual sales curve of e-commerce has become steeper from the previous focus to the shopping season, and the future consumption time distribution is more dispersed and the sales time curve is smoother. This change is bound to affect the sales trend of smart projection 618, which is highly sensitive and positively correlated to the trend of the e-commerce shopping season.
Third, intelligent projection encounters a technical cycle of its own growth. That is, the potential of 1LCD categories and LED light sources has been fully mobilized and used; The thriving laser light source, especially the three-color light source, is still difficult to bear the responsibility of popularization. In this context, for the volume market, it is equivalent to "stagnation of product technology iteration". Industry insiders pointed out,Intelligent projection products"Easy to use problem"has not been completely solved,In the future, new technology products can reduce prices、Low cost popularization,It is eager to pry into a new growth cycle。 In the past, a buffer or "technology accumulation period" growth trough was unavoidable.
The fourth cyclical factor is that the "overdraft effect of the home economy in the special period of 2020-2022" still exists. Whether it is color TV or smart projection, it belongs to the category of "home economy", and it is a long-life product. To completely consume the pressure of the previous market overdraft, industry analysts believe that it will take about 3 years.
It can be seen that the poor sales of audio-visual products including smart projection in the 618 market are not only due to its own category, but also due to complex external factors. In this regard,Industry insiders believe,"It is not terrible to reasonably adapt to the shrinking sales under the environmental cycle",The industry will further meet the double standard of "popularization + easy to use" through technological innovation, and then create a new cycle of growth of intelligent projection products, with long-term confidence.
Iron striking still needs its own hard, intelligent projection technology cycle
In the 618 shopping season in 2024, is there no bright spot in smart projection? Neither is it! For example, Jingdong 618 full-cycle battle report data shows that the turnover of 4K three-color laser projection increased by 180% year-on-year. Why can 4K three-color laser products grow so high? Because, 1. its own base is small, 2. it is indeed a new variety of technological upgrading.
Judging from the development process of smart projection from 2014 to 2024 in exactly 10 years, the real high growth period is in 2019 and before. The biggest feature of this stage is that almost every 2 years, the LED light source will have a step-by-step upgrade in brightness, and every 2 years, there will also be a step-by-step upgrade of intelligent technology and automatic application technology; At the same time, the price of smart projection with the same performance will drop significantly every year.
However, after 2019, the technological progress of LED light source DLP intelligent projection has entered a bottleneck period. From 2020 to 2022, it is a new generation of LED light sources that have achieved brightness improvement in LCD products. It has promoted the market development of the latter. LCD products are also known for their low price, which is very beneficial to the popularization and increase of volume.
Since 2022, the rise of laser intelligent projection, especially three-color laser intelligent projection, has accelerated, and the market layout has gradually formed a trend of more brand coverage. However, up to now, three-color laser intelligent projection is still a representative of "high price" and "high-end" products. Typical "new technologies" such as 4K, three-color laser, 3000 lumens highlight, ultra-short throw, and automatic gimbal have not fallen to the "pivot price" of the previous rapid market growth period, that is, the average price of about 2,300 yuan from 2014 to 2019.
"The old technical route has been saturated,The new technology upgrade has not yet entered the stage of cost popularization,In the mainstream consumption range"Solve the problem of better use"The ability to solve the problem is insufficient,This is the main internal reason for the growth pressure of the current smart projection market。
In addition to the technology and price trends of the above end markets, in the past 5 years, the upstream market has not been "friendly" to the development of intelligent projection. For example, from 2021 to 2022, the rapid growth of global demand for semiconductor products and the shortage of capacity in the semiconductor supply chain have led to the increase in the price of DLP light valve products and limited production. For another example, after 2019, although new models of DLP light valves have also been launched, they are still generally laid out under the framework of the two benchmark products of 0.33 2K and 0.47 4K, and the progress of the core technology of light valves has almost stagnated.
On the other hand, the projection valve market has also encountered the challenge of "demand track switching". That is, including DLP light valves, LCOS light valves, pixelated micro LED lighting products, etc., mainly focusing on the automotive application market. Including the demand for headlights, HUD, in-car entertainment screens, etc., it has attracted the attention of the upstream optical valve and optical machine industry chain.
In this regard, industry insiders said that the annual sales of projectors in the world are 20 million, and the number of cars is 90 million - and a car may often be equipped with multiple projection components, such as DLP headlights at least in pairs. This makes the vehicle a final potential scale greater than the traditional audio-visual projection demand, and the temporary market is in the starting stage of rapid development"Must fight" - the upstream focuses more on the vehicle, which has two impacts on intelligent projection:
On the one hand, in the short term, the R&D and innovation resources that can be taken care of by the upstream for the intelligent projection industry will be reduced, and its development speed will inevitably be limited, and there will even be competition for production capacity between two different markets; On the other hand, in the long run, the overall market demand for projection optics and display systems is expanding and diverse, which is of great benefit to the popularization of projection application culture, consolidating the underlying foundation of the industry, and promoting further cohesion including R&D, innovation and capacity construction.
However, the long-term benefits cannot negate the short-term pressures. When the upstream industry will be able to benefit the home smart projection category from the innovation and development achievements of the vehicle market, it will take time to answer.
However,In the long run, whether it is the core upstream industry or the terminal category,Intelligent projection still has many breakthrough points with strong certainty,It will inevitably be able to go out of unprecedented heights in terms of ease of use,This is the key to supporting the long-term confidence of the intelligent projection industry。
Innovation + diversity, intelligent projection can be expected in the future
To solve the problem of sustainable growth of the smart projector market, we must be based on the construction of our own capabilities. That is, to make a full article on better technology and lower cost, and to meet the needs of diversity and differentiation as much as possible.
This includes breakthroughs in brightness, color accuracy, lightness and low cost of light sources, multiple routes for lenses, light valves and other components, simultaneous improvement of projection screens and application scenario design, and more mature and reliable intelligent and automated applications. The most important thing is to further realize the real revolution of the light valve, a component that has been slow to progress in the past few years, such as the maturity of local 3LCOS products, the development of a new micro LED system projection, and so on.
Industry insiders said that intelligent projection is in a new round of "innovation node of key experience construction". Overcoming the technical bottleneck period and realizing the easy-to-use, easy-to-use and then upgraded products is the foundation for the sustainable growth of the industry in the future. In this regard, we should not shake long-term confidence with short-term demand fluctuations in the 618 market in 2024, but should establish an industrial innovation strategy with the irreplaceability of the projection special display system in the era of multi-immersive digital culture as the core concept. ——The only driving force to continue to support the growth of the industry is better innovation.