In 2019, the overall scale of the Interactive Board in the mainland dropped for the first time, and in 2020hit by a "cold wave" of COVID-19

In 2019, the overall size of the interactive tablet market in mainland China declined for the first time, but the performance of products in different segments was different. According to RUNTO, 1.503 million units of IB: Interactive Board were shipped in the Chinese mainland in 2019, down 5% year-on-year. Among them, e-ib: Educational Interactive Board accounted for 81.6% and shipped 1.226 million units, down 7% compared with the same period. Commercial Interactive tablets (c-ib: Corporate Interactive Board) accounted for 18.4% and shipped 276,000 units, up 9% year on year.

Market size of interactive tablet (IB) in mainland China in 2018-2019

Data source: RUNTO technology, unit: 1000 units, %

In the throes of the transition, the market for educational interactive tablets declined for the first time

With the continuous advancement of education informatization, the level of Chinese education modernization is gradually improved, and the products emerging in the 2.0 era emerge in an endless stream. Among them, educational interactive tablet is an important category to promote educational informatization. RUNTO Technology divides the educational Interactive panel category into Projection Interactive White Board (p-iwb: Projection Interactive White Board), LCD Interactive White Board (l-iwb: LCD Interactive White Board), and LCD Interactive Black Board (l-ibb: LCD Interactive Black Board).

In the past decade, along with the policy of educational informatization, interactive tablet has been continuously increasing its penetration in the education market, and is becoming the hub and entrance of smart classroom. Especially, it is widely used in the traditional multimedia classroom, and the equipment installation rate is close to 80%.Although smart classrooms representing emerging markets are taking on the task of making information-based teaching easier, more efficient and more intelligent, there are still some problems in the implementation of smart classrooms, and the growth of new demand for equipment is slowing down. Therefore, the educational interactive tablet in mainland China began to decline in 2019, but different educational interactive tablet segmentation products showed different development trends, which contained new market opportunities.

2018-2019 China mainland education interactive tablet (e-ib) market segmentation product structure changes

Data source: RUNTO Technology (RUNTO), unit: %

The projected interactive whiteboard market is down, but there is still a place for it

Educational projection interactive whiteboards continue to decline. According to research data from RUNTO, 195,000 educational projection interactive whiteboards were shipped in 2019, down 28% year on year. But the market share in educational interactive tablets remained at 16 percent, down 5 percentage points from the same period.

Under the impact of educational LCD interactive whiteboard and intelligent interactive blackboard, the market focus of educational projection interactive whiteboard is moving to the dominant market, and the products are also updating and iterating. Projection interactive whiteboard based market at present, the education from k-12 classroom to vocational education and the big classroom, especially big classroom scene equipment required to display the size of the request is very strict, more than liquid crystal white board can provide the existing limit of size, this will help keep the projection whiteboard in education interactive tablet in the market place. According to research data from RUNTO, the main size segment of projected interactive whiteboard products is 90-99 inches, accounting for 48% of the market, while the market share of products over 100 inches increased by 6 percentage points over the same period, accounting for 15% of the market.

From the supporting projector equipment, laser products accounted for more than half of the traditional bulb projector products, which also means that teaching projection has entered the "laser era." Among them, the laserization degree of higher education projection was not as good as that of K12 market before, and now it occupies a reverse proportion. Manufacturers in the industry are actively strengthening market segmentation services, the current laser projection into the full force period, continue to maintain the trend of growth, its rapid momentum on the education industry has a far-reaching impact on the classroom.

LCD interactive whiteboard market downturn, still accounted for 70% of the education market

Since 2014 or so, the market size of the education LCD interactive whiteboard has been larger than that of the education projection interactive whiteboard due to the abundant supply of upstream panels, and it has maintained a growing trend. However, the education LCD interactive whiteboard market has declined for the first time in 2019.According to research data from RUNTO, in 2019, 899,000 units of educational LCD interactive whiteboards were shipped, down 8% year on year, ranking the first place in the education tablet market, accounting for 73% of the market.

The education liquid crystal interactive whiteboard occupies the first place in the education interactive tablet market, especially in the K12 market. It is mainly used in many kinds of projects such as class communication, smart classroom, multimedia classroom, etc. LCD whiteboard has become the standard product of K12 classroom due to its own advantages.

Although there was a period of time before the exposure of blue light harmful vision of education LCD interactive whiteboard, schools and parents worried that LCD whiteboard will affect children's vision, let the industry people worry that this will restrict the use and popularity of education LCD interactive whiteboard. However, not long ago, the national radio, film and television quality inspection center test results, not all LED as a backlight products are blue harm, education LCD interactive whiteboard blue harm to the retina is extremely small, will not harm human health, this has relieved the industry, schools and parents' concerns.

As the standard of K12 classroom, the educational liquid crystal interactive whiteboard continuously presents large size. Since the ministry of education issued the notice on the two educational industry standards of the interactive electronic whiteboard series, the guidance has certain influence on the purchase size demand trend of LCD whiteboard products. According to the standard, the size of the electronic whiteboard should match the classroom area, and the education tablet with the K12 classroom area should conform to at least 85 inches. According to research data from RUNTO, in 2019, more than 30% of the market for educational LCD interactive whiteboard products are over 85 inches in size, an increase of more than 7% over the same period. Compared with other sizes, large size has become the market trend.

LCD blackboard market soared, centralized head brand shipments

Since the liquid crystal interactive blackboard entered the market, people have different comments on it, but compared with the projection interactive whiteboard, liquid crystal interactive whiteboard, liquid crystal interactive blackboard product growth is relatively fast. According to research data from RUNTO, 132,000 LCD interactive blackboard products were shipped in 2019, up 86% year-on-year. As a latecomer to the education tablet market, penetration is rising rapidly, to 10.7% of the market from 5% last year.

The promotion of educational informatization 2.0 policy and the upgrading and innovation of new materials and technologies have accelerated the growth rate of LCD interactive blackboard, which also makes the market competition of LCD interactive blackboard more fierce. At present, the market of LCD interactive blackboard is basically monopolized by the head brand, and small brands need to be broken through urgently. According to research data from RUNTO, in terms of the number of brands, there were less than 10 LCD blackboard manufacturers in 2016, and the number of brands has reached hundreds in just three or four years. In terms of market concentration, in 2019, CR3 accounted for more than 63%, and the market monopoly of liquid crystal interactive blackboard gradually formed. The shipments of TOP3 brands exceeded 5,000 units in a quarter, while the shipments of brands other than TOP3 hardly made a big breakthrough.

In terms of products, the main advantage of the LCD interactive blackboard is that it integrates the LCD interactive whiteboard with the traditional blackboard, which can satisfy the teachers' habit of writing on the blackboard. In size, it is similar to the LCD interactive whiteboard. The proportion of the 86-inch LCD interactive blackboard is the highest, over 70%. Compared with the projection interactive whiteboard, the LCD interactive blackboard is also difficult to adapt to the teaching needs of large classrooms. On the technical level, it adopts metal grid touch control, nano touch control and other new technologies, compared with the infrared touch in the accuracy and clarity of a great improvement.

Combined with the educational tablet in the demand for school teaching is constantly upgraded. The fluency of writing, reaction speed and display effect of touch screen, dustproof, durability, simple operation, practical function, abundant teaching resources, strong compatibility, and the ability to carry a variety of devices are the focus of users' attention.

Low functional differentiation, commercial interactive tablet ideal plump reality bone

Commercial interactive tablet is mainly used for meeting scene, but the meeting scene is mainly projector products. There are two main reasons for the commercial interactive tablet's popularity: first, although the interactive and online office functions of the commercial interactive tablet are better than the projector equipment, it has not been widely used by users, and is only used for the projection screen display, the opening probability is lower than expected; Second, as a display product, the price of the projector is far better than that of the commercial interactive tablet, which leads to the unsatisfactory growth rate of the commercial interactive tablet and forces practitioners to explore new application scenarios.

The market for commercial interactive tablets remains attractive, with new players flooding in

Since the beginning of 2017, the number of brands has been around 50, and now the number of brands has exceeded 200. In the second half of 2019, there will be a continuous influx of new players, including traditional commercial display enterprises, IT enterprises, integrated enterprises, and so on. The market competition is unprecedented.

According to the research data of RUNTO, commercial tablet products are constantly upgraded in 2019, gradually changing from stand-alone products to products with OPS as the main products. Capacitor products continue to grow, accounting for 5% of the market, which is 3 percentage points higher than the same period in 2018.

From the perspective of size change, the 65-inch product is the mainstream size, accounting for 41%;75-inch products grew the fastest, up 3 percent over the same period. The 86-inch product market grew from 17 percent in 2018 to 19 percent in 2019.

Meeting scene accounts for more than half, and multi-scene application is parallel

Commercial interactive tablet products are mainly used in meeting scenarios. Due to poor user habits, new requirements and new scenarios should be actively explored. According to research data from RUNTO, the majority of commercial interactive tablets in 2019 are mainly used for enterprise meeting scenarios, accounting for 56.3%.Among them, the demand of small and medium-sized enterprises is the largest, accounting for 43%;Demand from large firms grew fastest, by nearly 10 percentage points over the same period, to 39% of the market. Demand from government firms also grew, from 14 per cent in 2018 to 18 per cent in 2019.In addition to the demand for enterprise meeting scenarios, the demand for commercial interactive tablets in other industry scenarios also increased. For example, financial scenarios accounted for 12% of the commercial tablet market, with an increase of 0.3 percentage points. Medical scenarios accounted for 4% of the commercial tablet market, up 0.5 percentage points.

Structural changes of commercial interactive tablet (c-ib) market application industry in mainland China in 2019

Data source: RUNTO Technology (RUNTO), unit: %

The interactive tablet market is expected to grow by 4% in 2020

According to RUNTO's analysis, the outbreak has resulted in a very broad concept of online education and telecommuting in China, which is expected to change users' behavior patterns and psychological cognition to a considerable extent in the future, but it cannot have an immediate impact on the current market. In 2020, 1.56 million units are expected to be shipped in the interactive tablet market in the Chinese mainland, up 4% year-on-year, according to RUNTO. In terms of products, 320,000 commercial tablets were shipped, up 17.8% year on year. Education tablet shipments were 1.24 million units, up 0.8% year on year. Among them, 160,000 projection whiteboards were shipped, down 20.4% year on year; LCD whiteboards shipped 890,000 units, down 1.1% year on year; LCD blackboard shipments were 190,000 units, up 45.3% year on year.

Epidemic situation makes the education interactive tablet market press the "pause button" in a short term, so that interactive tablet can enjoy bulldozing dividend in the long term

The epidemic mainly has a great impact on the shipment of educational interactive tablets. Recently, the "pause" button was basically pressed in the first quarter of 2020, and all the recruitment projects were postponed. Education costs or more investment in epidemic prevention and control, especially suspension of school, software investment is relatively large.

First, the rapid growth of medical infrastructure during the epidemic will bring a certain amount of demand. However, the commercial interactive tablet occupies a small share of the medical application market and is mainly used for conference applications. Second, in terms of household use, the expectation of early household market application is gradually realized. It is recommended in the suspension of classes in this outbreak, but it still takes some time for consumers to accept it, and the new demand is not too large.

The epidemic has brought more to business and education with the need to improve the experience. The nation of more than 10 hours a day online life, study and work make the low-frequency high-value online application has been forced into, significantly reduced the city users use the Internet habit difference, each wire sample size for Internet tools to get the maximum test, also teach enough experience. After the outbreak, users will become more discerning. From another perspective, after the outbreak, interactive tablet will enter a new era of "good products", truly creating a good brand of good products and good services, because of the cognitive gap between cities at all levels and users of all types will be leveled, and then be accepted, recognized and purchased by a larger user group.