Unilumin has recently announced a strategic collaboration with Barco after Mingfeng Lin, stakeholder and actual controller of Unilumin, signed an agreement on September 9, 2019 in its intent to transfer 45.89 million unrestricted shares held in the Company—a stake of 5% excluding the shares repurchased by Unilumin as of September 9, 2019—to Barco at a price of US$1.287 per share.

About Barco
As a wholly-owned subsidiary of BarcoNV, Barco was founded in Hong Kong in 2003. The parent company BarcoNV was founded in 1934 and listed on the Euronext Brussels in 1986. At present, BarcoNV has developed networked visualization solutions for the entertainment, enterprise and healthcare markets in the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East. In 2018, BarcoNV’s revenue reached USD1.219 billion.

Tapping into each other’s competences
By leveraging Barco’s leading technical advantages in image and video processing and overall LED solutions, Unilumin finds its way to broaden its business in the market of control rooms, AR/VR, medical care, film and other professional LED display.

At the same time, the collaboration enhances Barco’s opportunity to increase global competitiveness by making most of Unilumin’s great competence in product system building, intelligent manufacturing and NPP technology.

Get ready for the cinema market
Unilumin and Barco will combine each other’s competences and cooperate in the joint development of LED display solutions, especially in the cinema market where Barco currently accounts for more than 50% of the total volume. Both companies will complement each other’s advantages to complete as soon as possible the joint development and promotion of cinema LED display solutions that comply with DCI certification standards and be fully prepared in both technology and marketing for the explosion of the cinema market.

As an important step in Unilumin’s global marketing strategy, the partnership will improve the company’s core competence and promote the healthy and stable development of the Unilumin by optimizing the shareholding structure, facilitating global expansion, and accelerating vertical integration and horizontal expansion in the LED display industry.

According to LEDinside's latest report 2020 Global LED Video Wall Market Outlook-Meeting Room, Sales Channel and Price Trend, by 2023, it is expected that one in eight mainstream standard screens will be converted to Premium Screen with the demand of approximately 25,000-30,000 Premium Screens. The global potential demand for this segment is expected to reach US$10 billion. The key driving factor is the consumers’ pursuit for differentiated experience, which can bring up the increase of the prices of movie tickets and increase the yield for each single-screen in the saturated movie market.

BARCO's global cinema market share increased from 41% in 2012 to 50% in 2018. In terms of regional markets, BARCO's market share in the US, Europe and China is 59%, 51%, and 50%, respectively.

For Barco, the strategic cooperation with Unilumin will not only expand product lines for the cinema market, but also consolidate its leading position in the global cinema equipment market by taking advantage of the manufacturing capabilities and cost advantages of Chinese partners in the emerging trend of LED cinema screens. For Unilumin, the cooperation between the two parties will promote it to enter the international market and enhance its brand recognition in the international market.