What Display Daily thinks: The parent company of Omdia, Informa, just acquired Canalys. Display Daily uses Omdia, Canalys, Sigmaintell, Counterpoint, DSCC, and JPR, of course, as its main sources of market data. Cinno Research, UBI, IDC, Gartner, Frost and Sullivan, and a number of boutique firms such as ARtillary Intelligence also provide market intelligence but tend to be less proactive in keeping us informed. Obviously, not all of them are concerned with the display industry to the same degree.
Consolidation in the market research industry is about to get more active as firms look to lock-in data sources with the rapid development of artificial intelligence systems that can help them leverage that data in more meaningful ways than they could using traditional methods. None of that takes away from the need for analysts and impartial sources, but it does change the nature of actionable market research.
Large market research companies don’t scale down very well. They tend to be good at the big stuff, the grand visions, and the planning that goes into driving a large enterprise. It gets much harder to do that for smaller-to-mid-size entities. It gets even harder to do as you dig into specialized market opportunities at a granular level. So, scale is going to make it possible for an Informa to reduce overhead and drive larger business contracts, but it doesn’t really create a new opportunity, let’s say, for a product manager looking to leverage research and analysis to define an emerging tech category or product line.
Whatever companies like Apple, Samsung, LG, TCL, BOE, and Tianma do is ultimately baked into the projections of the handful of companies that they impact. For TVs and IT products, the impact on companies, distributors, suppliers, and employees down the supply chain line is also baked-in. Everyone can see the giant oil tanker start to slow down or change direction. It’s too big a juggernaut to surprise anyone with its movement.
The main problem is that a ubiquitous display market, one in which displays are everywhere, is not as easy to monitor or predict. Automotive is a juggernaut, but it has a very unique set of data points, most of which are inaccessible to all but a handful of big companies already working in the space. Digital signage, large format displays, premium large format cinema displays, transportation displays, DOOH, retail displays—the list goes on and on—tend to be obscured.
For Informa, with Omdia and Canalys under their umbrella, it’s a pretty position to be in. Display Daily will continue to get the kind of data and information that drives headlines, but if the trend of consolidation continues, it will raise questions about the best sources of data for actionable decision-making for untapped markets, new markets, or even speculative endeavors. Big data is not always great data.
