In March 2018, the projection market welcomed a heavyweight player: baidu led a new round of financing for the company and became the "second largest" shareholder behind the company's founders. Thinking of Tmall's "magic screen" projection product in 2017, people can't help wondering: how can a small projection become the "hot spot" in the eyes of Internet giants like BAT?

Rapid growth attracts the attention of industry giants

Since 2014 to 2017, the projector product market has experienced a structural transformation, that is, the share of the domestic market share, grow, and for the first time more than "business teaching project" traditional "tome" such as the size of the market. This led to the projection products becoming the typical "consumer electronics".

In 2017, for example, the growth rate of laser TV is as high as 170 per cent -- although the total amount of 70, 000 is not high, but the market outlook is not "imaginably" weak. If and traditional home projector products (excluding micro and laser TV), in 2016, sales of high historical value, 150000 units, laser TV scale beyond "traditional family" is the "year", and will become the protagonist of high-end home theater audio application equipment.

In 2017, the growth rate of micro-investment products is less than that of laser TV, but it is also over 60%. Under its larger market base, annual market scale has fallen from 2014 in 100000, in 2017 to 2017, and markets that micro industry will was born in 2018 in "one million" the size of the "highest single brand sales projection ever single market". Driven by the dual wheel drive of microinvestment and laser TV, the market size of the projector industry will also enter a new round of "high growth channel" from the slow growth of the previous five years.

Standing under this round of "projection high growth" vision, the projector market has just received the support and favor of baidu, Tmall magic screen, hisense, skyworth, haier and other "traditional giants". In 2017, when the projected market as a whole grew by less than 10 per cent, the number of participating brands increased substantially -- the latter being the best footnote to market confidence.

In the BAT era, small projection delineates the new "circle"

In the domestic information industry, BAT is an absolute giant: capital, technology, market, fans, and national support. Such industry giants have baidu and alibaba's Tmall, two players involved in the "projection circle", and the giant features of the "new play method" into the projection market.

For example, baidu not only injected a new round of investment into the company, but also went deeper into the company's "product innovation". At the us CES show earlier this year, baidu released the PopIn Aladdin projection lamp jointly built by PopIn and jimi, baidu's Japanese subsidiaries. The raise the product is now in Japan, and plans to officially listed in July: this example, baidu very m cooperation, beyond the simple capital, including technical, ecology, market and international channels, and other aspects.

For example, one of the big innovations in the first new Z6 product of Jimmy kimmel in spring was the integration of baidu DuerOS intelligent ecosystem platform, which has many AI functions including voice intelligence. Baidu DuerOS 'eco-partners include haier, midea and TCL, among others, leading consumers of electronics and home appliances.

Thus, baidu and m cooperation is not only capital level, more time extremely meters of micro and laser TV is similar to a pocket: containing baidu technology, information service, ecological and users. Similarly, Tmall is the first choice of magic screen, which is also the content of video in alibaba system "youku".

"Information + terminal", which is why BAT likes projection products. Especially in today's intelligent technology development, the concept of information terminal has been well above the concept of "traditional PC" : mobile phones, TV, projection, so that the refrigerators, washing machines, home service robot, etc., can all be BAT need "carrying information terminal hardware". In a sense, as the second choice after color TV for home entertainment large-screen, projection is becoming a "must compete information terminal entrance".

As the projection of the entrance, it will naturally become the object of "drainage". And Internet giant flow of information, market, fans, the scientific and technological innovation, will be to "packaging" intelligent projection application products, and create a new, in order to "application" as the center of the projection consumption age.

In the age of AI, how should projection explore the future

"Seize information terminals and smart device nodes" : this is the purpose of BAT to "occupy" the micro-investment and laser TV markets. The opposite of this goal is: how do projection products, especially household products, "fit into the information age of AI"?

From the perspective of the traditional projection market, the concept of intelligence has been "divided into two parts" : on the one hand, emerging brands, especially household brands, regard intelligence as "standard allocation" and core selling points. Even more, many brands use the concept of "new name", such as smart flat-screen TV and smart cinema TV, to dilute the professional image and indifference of the word "projection". On the other hand, many traditional projection brand, especially the traditional market as the main sales direction of the brand, its products intelligent rate is less than one over ten, basic technology and product application pattern and there is no essential difference between 15 years ago.

This completely inconsistent attitude towards "intelligence" in the projection industry is even more abrupt in today's era of further emphasis on AI technology. Especially in the context that the development of AI has become a national strategy, the development of different projection brands has posed more tests.

From the home screen, the AI is a must: voice interaction of good experience and the future of all things connected proposition, the demand of the smart home and so on, each of these reasons enough to embrace the AI projection. What's more, behind the AI platform, there is also a huge network of "audio-visual content", which is a necessary "information content environment" for large-screen home users.

From the perspective of business and education, AI is also a topic that cannot be avoided. General education and retail business, almost 70 to 80 percent of the traditional projector market. These apps face a "very human and pervasive" scenario. In these scenarios, the concepts of intelligent education, intelligent meeting and intelligent office have been popularized. However, unlike the home market, which emphasizes the "convenience of integration", engineering installation and system integration applications can entrust the large-screen AI projected on the business education market to "peripheral devices".

However, both home and business education applications face the "common AI" era. 2. The content to be displayed on the projection screen should come from the AI ecology; 3. Consumers are increasingly accustomed to new technologies such as intelligence, AI and voice interaction. These three points almost determine that "in addition to individual application scenarios", most projection display must be "through the individual or integration system" to achieve intelligence. That is, ecology determines the direction of evolution. The "new application environment and habits" marked by AI must include the requirement of intelligent projection application. Taking the application as the core and integrating the value point of large screen into the AI era, it is an inevitable innovation proposition for projectors.

In this respect, there is no doubt that the home market is the main direction of the brand, especially the information industry giants such as baidu, "the pulse" of the brand, has been in the forefront of the industry. The industry expects that with the addition of capital market and industry market, the four brands, such as polar rice, nuts, hisense and storm, will become the "four-driving force" of projection intelligence.

On the whole, the investment of baidu jiemi represents the new capital ecology and technology ecology on the projection industry, especially the household projection market. This also means that the projection circle will further accelerate its growth and popularization in 2018 under the encouragement of capital and AI, two "core engines".