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EPSON, NEC and Panasonic Dominate 2015 Projector Brand Survey

nec-pj-0515TFCinfo today announced highlights of its yearly “Projector Brand Customer Perception and Preference Study 2015.” This report marks the 14th year that this annual projector brand benchmarking study has been conducted.

Results of TFCinfo’s new report reveal significant movement among projector competitors in the three measurable areas of brand strength: awareness, image and intent. These areas are analyzed across the five most important market segments in the projector industry: large corporations, SMB, SOHU (small office/home user), education and government.

Many brands are solidifying their position; some are moving up in rankings and expanding their dominance from other markets, while others remain stationary.

While many brands were researched in-depth and each show significant strengths and weaknesses in certain areas, a few brands stand out above the rest in this year’s research. Some of the general brand highlights from this research include:

Epson again has a stellar performance this year among those in the education market, however it is their continued improvements in other markets that make the brand stand out. Epson shows great improvement this year in the more business oriented segments, and has especially strong results coming in from the SOHU market. Epson improved their unaided and aided awareness scores, as well as their purchase consideration, in at least four of the five market segments surveyed (an 11 percent gain in aided awareness among SOHU alone). Epson also has one of the strongest and most clear brand profiles compared to their competitors in the Brand Image Index analysis. Epson is in a great position being viewed as a high quality, reliable brand that is considered both an excellent investment and a good value for the money.

NEC: In examination and comparison of the key market segments, TFCinfo found that while NEC continues to be driven by large business, the brand is beginning to successfully transfer their positive image and reputation to other market segments more. NEC is one of the most recalled projector brands in nearly every segment surveyed, and is one of the top five most recognized brands overall. NEC is considered to be a high quality, reliable brand and is showing positive movements in other markets outside of business this year.

While Sharp does have an advantage in SOHU, as the brand has a strong retail presence and various other consumer product offerings, the brand continues to improve in other segments. The most positive improvements for Sharp this year come from those in education and government. Sharp posts gains in both unaided and aided brand awareness in each of these segments. Sharp is also beginning to be viewed as not only a value, but as an investment.

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Our brand association and use analysis shows that Panasonic is one of the most considered brands for purchase. Being a strong name in the consumer market continues to help the brand to be named one of the top brands associated with home theater projection, and this supports their strong scoring in SOHU throughout this year. Panasonic is also one of the top performers in the Brand Image Index and has one of the clearest profiles of all the brands surveyed. The brand, as rated by experienced end users, does very well on important affinity attributes such as image quality, excellent reliability/build quality, ease of use and customer service support.

Considering all of the changes at InFocus over the years, the brand continues to do well. InFocus posts gains in unaided free recall in three of the five segments, and aided brand awareness in two of the segments surveyed this year. InFocus remains as one of the most recognized brands in the projector industry. InFocus is clearly seen as an inexpensive, mobile projector, and continues to be easily identifiable as a brand that specializes in projectors and projector technology. Considering their long history in the category, this image is not likely to change for some time regardless of changes with the company.

Despite some setbacks over the past few years in this annual tracking research, Sony’s strong brand strength continues to be clearly evident in the projector category. Sony is one of the top four most recognized projector brands overall and performs very well on important affinity attributes. Sony places in the top three for the majority of important purchasing factors surveyed (such as quality, reliability, price as an investment and ease of use).

While Dell has not been a top performer in this research over the years, and the brand continues to appear under recognized compared to their current market share, they have shown continuous improvements year over year. Continuing with their momentum Dell posts gains in unaided free recall in each of the five market segments surveyed this year (with some large gains). Dell also improves upon their aided brand awareness and purchase consideration as well. Experienced users and purchasers clearly view Dell as an affordable, easy to use, mobile projector.
Brands that are analyzed more in depth in this research include: 3M, Dell, Dukane, Eiki, Epson, Hitachi, InFocus, NEC, Optoma, Panasonic, Sharp and Sony.

To get the entire survey results, go here.

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