China's Interactive Displays Market Grew 15% in 2018

Education and Corporate Display Technology Market Research, Analysis and Commentary

China’s interactive displays* market continues to thrive, with last year’s sales closing in on 1.3 million units, according to a new Global Interactive Displays* report from Futuresource Consulting.

“The interactive displays* market has grown at a tremendous pace over the last decade,” says Colin Messenger, Senior Market Analyst at Futuresource Consulting. “Initially, major uptake was primarily seen in western markets including the US, UK and the Netherlands. China is now by far the largest market in the world and posted a 15% increase in sales volumes last year.”

Currently, interactive displays* are almost exclusively used in K-12 schools, and after years of vigorous growth in China, classroom penetration has now exceeded the government target of 80%. Much of the volume has been driven by the government’s reform and development plan for improving the education environment in rural areas, narrowing the gap between urban and rural education. As a result, Futuresource expects 89% of classrooms in China to have an interactive display* by the end of 2019 and because of this high rate of penetration, anticipates annual sales to education to begin to decline at a rate of around 6% per year. Furthermore, we see the shift in investment focus from display hardware to digital learning software and content.

“This does not signal impending doom for interactive display manufacturers in China,” comments Messenger. “As demand from education begins to wane, the corporate market is starting its ascendance, with Chinese vendors working alongside major panel providers to develop the opportunity. Many have strong relationships with government and corporations, and they are experts at creating demand for new products.”

Demand for interactive displays* in meeting rooms is aided by several related trends. The increasing demand for collaboration tools in workspaces, the growing ubiquity of video platforms to support remote communications and a shift in meeting space design from larger more traditional board room environments towards smaller, more flexible team workspaces are each helping to drive demand for interactive display* solutions in the corporate sector.

What’s more, the addressable market for corporate meeting spaces is larger than K-12 classrooms, and existing penetration is negligible. “We expect the corporate market to grow by nearly 40% per year, helping to offset decline seen in the education sector. This shift in vertical focus will help overall demand to remain stable throughout our forecast period, to 2023 and beyond,” says Messenger.

The new Futuresource report, Quarter 1 2019 World Interactive Displays, is part of Futuresource Consulting’s interactive displays quarterly market track service, based on sales-in data from vendors. The service covers both interactive whiteboards and interactive flat panels in education and the corporate sector. It includes sales data at sell-in level by country, forecasting including five-year sales forecasts by country, product, technology and competitive review.

*Refers to interactive displays sold into corporate and education markets exclusively.

About the author

Colin Messenger

Colin has been with Futuresource Consulting for over 25 years, he has been involved with the Interactive and schools markets on a day-to-day basis for over eighteen years and runs the worldwide interactivity displays research programmes.

Prior to Futuresource he held senior positions at Orange for 10 years, and as General Manager of Euronet Cellular Communications launched the first UK distribution company to offer a consumer mobile phone package to dealers.

He was a member of the UK Government’s DfES, Classroom of the Future Project (Ingenium) and he has been an AV Awards judge over the last 12 years. He is a STEM Ambassador, where he visits schools enthusing on careers in science and technology. He is governor of a London school and acts as a strategic partner for their IT vision plan.