China market demand for interactive white boards (IWB) has been gaining momentum thanks to the country's strenuous efforts in promoting intelligent education programs, allowing its top-2 homegrown suppliers Shiyuan Electronic Technology and HiteVision Technology to sustain stable increases in shipments and revenues, according to Digitimes Research.
IWB sales in China reached 1.5 million units in 2018, representing an annual growth of 23%, with 80% of them adopted for education use.
In the first half of 2019, the country's largest IWB supplier Shiyuan saw its education-use IWB sales surge 14.2% on year to CNY2.1 billion (US$1.49 billion), with conference-use IWB shipments shooting up 40% on year to CNY340 million.
Prices for large-size LCD panels have plunged by 20-30% so far this year, which is expected to boost demand for education-use IWBs and prompt more monitor and projector makers to jump on the bandwagon.
But as IWB penetration rate is relatively high in the fundamental education segment, makers have to develop new markets such as job training institutions or tap the conference-use IWB solutions that entail higher unit prices and are still rather low penetration, Digitimes Research believes.