Portable projector shipments to the home sector are forecast to grow much faster than shipments to the business sector, according to a new report, entitled “The World Market for Portable Projectors 2010 Edition”, from IMS Research. Shipment growth in the home sector is forecast at a CAGR of 32% over the next five years, while shipments to the business sector are forecast to grow at a much lower CAGR of around 4% over the same period.

This strong growth in portable projector shipments to the home sector is primarily attributed to increasing demand for large screens for home entertainment, coupled with continuing decreases in the average selling prices of portable projectors. Another important factor supporting high growth is the growing use of LED light sources in portable projectors. Currently, most portable projectors use UHP or UHE bulbs as the light source. In comparison, LEDs offers much longer life (average more than 20,000 hours compared to 3,000 to 4,000 hours for UHP or UHE bulbs) and therefore greatly reduce the maintenance costs of bulb replacement.  

Research Director, Richard Jun Li commented:” The brightness of the LED light sources that are currently used in portable projectors is not good enough to generate decent pictures. However, we predict that their brightness performance will greatly improve over the next 2-3 years, making portable projectors effective and affordable solutions for consumers”.