Market reports

Here's our monthly best-selling pico-projectors list for the beginning of February 2012. We're using data from Amazon.com, which seems to be selling the most wide range of pico projectors. This list does not include embedded modules in mobile phones or cameras. Here we list the top ten projectors, with the price and position in Amazon's best-selling electronics product (which gives a better idea of the actual selling volume):

1. Optoma PK301 ($324, #692)
2. Microvision ShowWX+ HDMI ($369, #916)
3. Optoma PK201 ($252, #1,276)
4. AAXA P1 Jr ($107)
5. 3M MP160 ($249, #2,572)
6. 3M MP225a ($293, #2,821)
7. Flip iGo ($199)
8. WowWee Cinemin Swivel ($179, #3,433)
9. Microvision ShowWX+ ($315, #3,442)
10. 3M MPro-150 ($259, #3,820)

The top of the list is pretty much the same as last month, and it is dominated by Optoma, Microvision and 3M.

Pacific Media Associates released the findings from their annual manufacturers survey. The manufacturers expect that progress will continue through 2015 - with improved efficiency and larger batteries. This will result in shipments of 58 million pico projectors in 2015 - up from about 3 million in 2011.

PMA says that in 2011 about 36% of stand-alone pico projectors offered 30 lumens or more. This will grow to 62% by 2015, and 16% of the projectors will offer 150 or more lumens. It's more difficult to offer that kind of brightness in embedded projectors, and only 18% of embedded projectors will offer 30 lumens or more by 2015 (this is up from 6% in 2011).

Asia Optical says that they plan to ship 2 million LCoS pico projector modules in 2012 - half of them embedded in smart phones and half in external pico projectors. Apparently most of these projector phones (if not all) will be launched by China-based vendors, probably to the Chinese market.

Asia Optical managed to decrease the production cost of an LCoS module to below $20.

Pacific Media Associates (PMA) released their finding from their sixth biennial US projector users, and it includes some interesting results. 90% of organization respondents and 78% of individual customers were either very interested or somewhat interested in buying a pico-projector. This is a dramatic increase from 2009 (44% and 53% for organizational and individual customers).

Another interesting finding is that most people (in both the professional and individual segments) actually want an embedded pico projector in their laptop and not in their phone. Mobile phones are just the fourth most popular embedded option.

Here's our monthly best-selling pico-projectors list for the beginning of January 2012. We're using data from Amazon.com, which seems to be selling the most wide range of pico projectors. This list does not include embedded modules in mobile phones or cameras. Here we list the top ten projectors, with the price and position in Amazon's best-selling electronics product (which gives a better idea of the actual selling volume):

1. Optoma PK301 ($358, #791)
2. WowWee Cinemin Swivel ($109, #897)
3. Optoma PK201 ($249, #1,408)
4. Optoma Neo-i ($279)
5. AAXA P1 Jr ($110)
6. Microvision ShowWX Classic ($288, #2,149)
7. Microvision ShowWX+ HDMI ($369, #2,440)
8. 3M MP-180 ($369, #2,757)
9. Samsung SP-H03 ($429, #3,729)
10. Optoma PK101 ($129, #3,771)

The top of the list is pretty much the same as last month, and it is pretty dominated by Optoma and Microvision.

Pacific Media Associates (PMA) announced their best-selling projectors lists. In the New-Era and Pico category (sub-500 lumens), the top five projects in North America in November 2011 are the Vivitek Qumi Q2, followed by the Optoma PK-301 and Optoma PK-201, the Acer K11 and the Optoma PT100. Only two of those (Optoma's PK-301 and PK-201) are pico-projectors (battery powered). 

In our own best selling pico projector list posted last month, the PK-301 was indeed the best selling model, followed by the ShowWX classic and the PK-201.

Here's our monthly best-selling pico-projectors list for the beginning of December 2011. We're using data from Amazon.com, which seems to be selling the most wide range of pico projectors. This list does not include embedded modules in mobile phones or cameras. Here we list the top ten projectors, with the price and position in Amazon's best-selling electronics product (which gives a better idea of the actual selling volume):

1. Optoma PK301 ($369, #1,089)
2. Microvision ShowWX Classic ($133, #1,158)
3. Optoma PK201 ($250, #1,410)
4. WowWee Cinemin Swivel ($189, #1,637)
5. Microvision ShowWX+ HDMI ($369, #1,856)
6. AAXA P1 Jr ($108)
7. Samsung SP-H03 ($300, #2,925)
8. Microvision ShowWX+($297, #3,042)
9. iGo Flip ($169)
10. Brookstone iPhone 4 pocket projector sleeve ($229, #5,050)

The top of the list is pretty much the same as last month, but there's a new addition at #10 - Brookstone's iPhone 4 projector sleeve. Microvision and Optoma are still the top pico-projector vendors at Amazon.com.