Pandigital poised for explosive growth with new President Todd Ruhalter
We had the pleasure of speaking with Todd Ruhalter, the new president of Pandigital, on Friday and his excitement about the digital picture frame market is contagious. Pandigital took a 2-1 market leadership position in 2006-7. Not bad market share for the up and coming 26 person (and growing) company out of Dublin, CA, and their new president has the 2007 projections dwarfing what they did last year. Ruhalter expects the company to move over three million digital frames this year through their partner network which currently reaches nearly 15,000 retail outlets.
The biggest risk in meeting their 2007 goal, said Ruhalter, is the huge worldwide demand for display panels from a wide area of applications such as in car navigation devices along with the huge growth in orders for digital picture frames. He cited that the Asian manufacturers are scrambling to fulfill the orders now being placed for the upcoming holiday season and as a result of the potential supply problems, Ruhalter expects that retail outlets will sell out of digital frames quickly as they did last Christmas. Even with the potential supply issues, Ruhalter predicted averages prices would drop for most digital frames over last year while still adding new capabilities so the news is good for consumers who act quickly this holiday season.
Prior to joining Pandigital, Ruhalter worked at Casio for 18 years, most recently running all consumer products, but was drawn to the Pandigital opportunity because of the massive projections for the digital frame industry over the next few years. The upside was just too tempting as the future for dynamic frames evolving into what he calls “wider entertainment devices” meant the industry is poised for an explosion. Ruhalter cited that even with the success of digital frames last year there is only about 2.2% penetration into U.S. Households. He sees that expanding dramatically over the next few years but believes the opportunity expands even further as many households, he believes, will have multiple frames spread across many rooms in the house and office.
Ruhalter also discussed how Pandigital plans to maintain its edge as more and more companies, including some well known brands, enter this market. Ruhalter thought that technology convergence would be a competitive advantage by adding alarm, clock, calendar, auto on-off capabilities and a new “slim-line” design this year to the product line along with Bluetooth and WIFI capabilities with Pandigital-proprietary chip sets. Many of the frames this year will be enabled for a wireless accessory kit to be available later this summer which would instantly add either format of wireless connectivity to the frames. In 2008, he thought many of their frames will have expanded wireless capabilities and more technology convergence that will enhance the appeal of the products even further to the consumer, at the same time simplifying usage so that the widest possible consumer base could enjoy the products. Down the road, he hinted, there would be additional product technology convergences by Pandigital in what he referred to as “Digital Photo Frame Entertainment”.
Wireless will play a key role in that transformation as the devices open up to content feeds through RSS and other open standards. Ruhalter would not project how many wireless kits they would sell this year but if they move close to their projected targets overall it would mean a great year for Pandigital and for the emerging category of wireless digital picture frames.
