Pacific Media Associates (PMA) has released its latest industry forecasts for the worldwide projector market. An 18 percent growth rate — to 11.3 million units worldwide — is expected for the projector industry in 2013. And, there are some especially bright spots in several industry segments which are expected to  contribute significantly to this growth.

Solid state illumination (SSI) projectors are expected to outperform the overall market, though growth continues to be hindered somewhat by ongoing budget constraints in the U.S. and Western European education markets. Despite that, PMA anticipates strong future growth for this segment based on the expectation that several additional manufacturers will begin selling SSI projectors beginning in 2013.

While the D-Cinema conversions for major cinema chains worldwide is slowing, a crop of new lower-cost models geared at smaller, independent theaters and other public venues will continue to move this segment forward at a better pace than previous forecasts showed. This is especially true in China, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.

The PMA forecast for the worldwide home theater market is also positive, with the expectation for solid growth in future years, as home theater projector trends will be positively impacted by major sporting events such as the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia, the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, 2016 Euro Football in France, and the 2016 Winter Olympics in Brazil.

Another area of strong anticipated growth is in the New Era Integrated projector segment, for models built-in to other host devices, such as cell phones, cameras and camcorders. PMA has forecast a very strong 68% growth rate for this segment, to over 1.4 million units worldwide in 2013, and expects unit volume to again more than double in 2014.