Includes tiny laser- and LED-based models and low-cost retro-tech models

Menlo Park, CA -- (ReleaseWire) -- 08/10/2007 -- Pacific Media Associates (PMA), the global market information experts on large-screen displays, has just released their forecasts for a new breed of front projectors. Although these models will offer only 500 lumens of brightness or less, Pacific Media estimates that they will experience explosive growth from only 18 thousand units in 2006 to more than 6.5 million in 2011.

Pacific Media’s New Era market includes the following types:

• Stand-alone mini-projectors (also known as pocket projectors)
• Snap-on or embedded mini-projector modules for mobile host devices
• Embedded mini-projector modules for “big” host devices
• Lower-end “toy” mini-projectors
• Higher-end gaming mini-projectors
• Personal mini-projectors

The three mini-projector categories together will account for 4.4 million of the 2011 total. According to Pacific Media president, William Coggshall, “Because the success of these products depends on both the continued evolution of technologies to produce designs that achieve goals of smallness, brightness, low power, and low cost and the readiness of consumers to embrace this potentially ‘cool’ product concept, our forecast is highly speculative. But we could also be off by an order of magnitude or two on the low side, as witness the number of mobile phones with embedded cameras. And something is definitely going on, as witness the number of components companies and new projector designs making the rounds.”

“To create these new mini-projector forecasts, we had to add a bunch of new possibilities to our lists of technology and features, including MOEMS (micro-optical-electro-mechanical-systems) imagers, and further refine our range of sizes to include ‘Femtoportable’, by which we have dubbed models weighing less than 0.2 kg (0.44 lb.),” adds Coggshall.

[Graph image file available on request]

At the other end of the spectrum are three categories of products that are purposely recycling older technologies to achieve bill-of-material costs lower than current models, aiming the products at groups of potential buyers—including children—who have never before owned or used projectors. Lower-resolution imager chips and older/dimmer lamp technologies top the list of the changes in these categories. “Here, we just had to revive some dormant combinations of technology and features,” says Coggshall.

About Pacific Media Associates
Pacific Media specializes in global display market information, covering all large-screen display categories: front projectors, plasma and LCD TVs, and rear-projection displays. Their Large-Screen Displays Industry Service family of publications provides detailed worldwide quarterly updates (sell-in data and forecasts) on large-screen display markets, newsletters on new products and other key industry developments, monthly advertised price tracking, ad hoc analyses, and annual Web surveys of North American end users (including organizations and individual consumers) and both North American and EMEA resellers/retailers. Their Large-Screen Displays Tracking Service family of monthly reports offers timely sell-through data and analysis on unit sales, true volume-weighted street prices, and inventories of large-screen displays sold by leading North American retailers, resellers, and distributors. Pacific Media Associates was established by Dr. William Coggshall, who was previously a co-founder of Dataquest and helped start the syndicated high-tech market information business. The company headquarters is at 1060 Siskiyou Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025. Telephone +1 650-561-9020 http://www.pacificmediaassociates.com