Over the last two or three years, we have seen Taiwanese companies (following many of their Japanese counterparts) moving towards the B2B display business. BenQ was one of the first, but we have since seen Acer starting to sell LFDs (although with very limited success so far), and at ISE we caught up with Asus, which is also heading in this direction.
The first products for B2B applications are new 42″ to 65″ LFDs with 24/7 rated performance. There is also a 22″ for meeting room and retail applications. The 42″/43″ class products have an integrated media player for entry level signage use, although the company has not yet developed smart displays.
The company has also developed a 65″ unit using infrared touch with an 85″ UltraHD touch monitor on its roadmap. Asus has a good presence in the Chromebook market and sees that presence helping its ability to get into the education market, where this kind of display would be used.
The P3B small UST projector was launched at CES last year (Innovative DLP Demos in the TI Suite). The unit has 1280 x 800 resolution and staff told us that brightness is now 800 lumens. Asus told us that it has had a big success with pharmaceutical sales people, which was a surprise.
Analyst Comment
Asus, like BenQ, Acer and Toshiba, as well as specialists such as Iiyama, will be looking to exploit its IT distribution channels in large format applications. A few years ago, large format displays (LFDs) were seen as very specialist A/V products, but especially with the development of smart signage and cloud services for digital signage, IT channels are able to enter the market. Margins won’t go up!
We were talking to staff from Asus (UK) and they told us that in the UK, Exertis is the key distribution partner for all of the Asus products and that will include the LFD products. (BR)
The Asus P3B produces 800 lumens and has proved popular with pharmaceutical sales people. Image:Meko
