The projector market is growing with researchers predicting that one of the big growth markets going forward will be short throw projectors used in the Pro AV and education market.

Last quarter the front projector market topped 1.6 million shipments in the third quarter, according to Pacific Media Associates. That's a 15.2 percent increase in shipments from Q3 2007, marking the second straight quarter with year-to-year (Y/Y) growth of more than 15 percent.

PMA vice president Michael Abramson says pico projectors, tiny projectors designed for mobile gadgets, generated a lot of buzz in the third quarter. "We saw new small models — pico and larger — launched by 3M, Aiptek, Dell, Optoma, and Samsung during the quarter," Abramson says. "And we expect shipments to rapidly ramp up this holiday season and into 2009."

Other growing projectors:

WXGA projectors in the professional market
1080p projectors in home theater
Short-throw projectors in the education market

"We saw tremendous third-quarter growth for short-throw products in the education market," says Abramson."But new entrants in the market, combined with rapidly declining prices, are opening up new settings such as small meeting rooms and new applications such as digital signage and public venue entertainment, where short-throw projection offers a compelling alternative to flat panel displays."

Pacific Media recently predicted the short-throw projector market to expand to 844,000 units by 2012 with a compound annual growth rate of 60 percent.