The s-9 will not see much competition in terms of efficiency . Basically their gear has pretty much always been the most efficient.
Now the price point most likely too high. But people will flock to this since they know the ½ ing is coming. I will order 1 just because.
SP20 was more efficient than the S5 was when hashing at the S5's hashrate - though it was VERY close, close enough that manufacturing tolerances probably had a few of the worse efficiency SP20s not managing that against a few of the most efficient S5s.
Bitmain will probably already HAVE competition from Bitfury on efficiency, and that LK1402 might be as well depending on how close BW.com/LKetc hit the announced specs on it.
Right now, though, it's still looking like Bitfury is in the lead, as they've SHOWN working silicon for the full-custom 14/16nm generation and nobody else has (I discount KNC's "Solar" announcements, they've not shown any indication they have fielded that FOR REAL in any quantity worth mention IF AT ALL and KNC has a long history of paper announcements with VERY VERY long delays before delivering actual product).
(edit)
And KNC is bankrupt now and likely to soon be dead anyway, RIP no big loss....
I doubt that the S9 will be 1 BTC/TH - though I won't be shocked at .6-.8BTC/TH range. Consider that the S7 is down to around .3/TH lately - the S9 would have to be a .10w/GH unit AT THE MINER (not just at the chip) to be worth over *3 TIMES* the price/TH.
