Games MEA speaks to Johnson Choi, the Director of Sales and Marketing at ViewSonic MEA, about the regional gaming displays market.
How big is the gaming displays market in the region?
The overall gaming business for MEA in 2016 was $3.2 Billion out of which PC gaming business was $1.02 Billion with KSA doing $500 Million and UAE with $300 Million share. The monitor share from this business is around $51M grossing the monitor numbers to 146K per year. We are expected to see an overall growth of 10-15 percent by end of 2017.
Big screen televisions are now available at affordable rates. Are these eating into the displays market?
TVs are meant for home use and not to be compared to the Digital Signage Market or the applications that require Interactive Flat Panels. In short, TVs can work for maximum 8 hours of continuous operation, but you can’t use them for digital signage application, where it requires 16/7 or 24/7 operation.
Also, most of the TVs are not equipped with the professional port like RS232 or LAN, which is always found in the professional screens. Lastly, TVs can’t be mounted in portrait and this is also a limitation. So in summary, we don’t see TVs eating into the Professional Display Market.
What sort of market is currently present for short-throw projectors, considering the expensive price points they are available at?
Short Throw Projectors are mostly positioned for schools (classrooms) and they are considered the budgetary solutions compared to Ultra-Short throw and Interactive Flat Panels.
Many schools have started buying smart boards with interactive features when it comes to their AV requirements. Have these had an impact on the education sector projector market?
Smart boards have been there since long time and they are always bundled with Short Throw projectors or Ultra Short Throw Projectors. What we are witnessing now is an increase in demand for the Interactive Flat Panels as schools are considering and buying them. The IFP demand is growing in the educational sector replacing the projectors, but of course this growth is increasing gradually by time because of budget concerns driving many schools to continue demanding the projectors.
In terms of innovation in the displays and projectors arena, is ViewSonic working on anything interesting and new?
We have recently introduced our “myViewBoard” which is a unique application in the world of collaboration, enabling you to share your whiteboard from different location.
In the early 90s during the PC market boom, ViewSonic used to be one of the topmost selling display brands. What according to you needs to be done in order to elevate the positioning of the brand in the current market scenario
With regards to display products, we are still considered No.1 around the world, especially in the U.S and Taiwan. ViewSonic’s mission is to be the preferred global brand of visual solution products as we continue to focus on display-centric offerings that include LED monitors, touch displays, projectors, large format displays and Interactive Flat panel. ViewSonic continues to pioneer visual technology innovations and build a connected and far-reaching digital future.
Middle East has been our focus country from 2016 onwards, and hence we have started participating in some important exhibitions in 2017, such as GESS and GITEX. In addition to these, we have an aggressive on ground team in the Middle East now. With the team that we currently have working alongside me, we believe that our brand position will enhance very soon.