May 25 2010
The shipments of the touch screens peaked to 606 million units, a 29% year-on-year increase during 2009, according to DisplaySearch’s forthcoming 2010 Touch Panel Market Analysis.
The estimated capacitive shipments, according to the earlier forecast made in the 2009 report, has increased substantially. The iPod Touch and the iPhone of Apple were responsible for the popularization of the projected capacitive touch technology since 2007 and the iPad also adopted it during 2010. DisplaySearch has predicted that revenues from projected capacitive technology will overtake the revenues of resistive touch technology during 2010.
The diverse touch screen industry has many companies following a number of different technologies with the number if touch screen technologies exceeding a dozen. Based on unit shipments, the resistive technology is presently the leading technology with 90 companies focusing on resistive technology. However, many suppliers have been attracted by the projected capacitive technology with 56 companies offering this technology during 2010, double the number of suppliers (27) during the last year.
Some of the companies provide a single touch technology only, while many offer several technologies like 3M and Tyco/Elo Electronics. Some of the companies only manufacture produce controller ICs, while others produce entire modules that include controller IC and the touch sensor.
Other important trends covered in the report include the emergence of mobile phones as the major touch screen application based on unit shipments, commercialization of in-cell touch technology in May 2009 for the first time, and commercialization and penetration of various new touch technologies like on-cell and combination-type touch panels in the near future.
The report has thoroughly analyzed the touch panel technologies along with their market predictions up to 2016. It offers an in-depth breakdown of 21 applications with 9 size categories and 11 touch technology categories. It also offers details on multi-touch, sensor market and touch controller IC market forecasts up to 2016.
SID and DisplaySearch are jointly hosting the SID DisplaySearch Business Conference on May 24, 2010, for understanding the touch screen market. Over 190 vendors from the touch screen modules, ITO film, controller ICs and various components segments were surveyed by DisplaySearch to prepare this market analysis report. The report has profiled these vendors, along with revenues and shipments of more than hundred touch screen vendors.
Source: http://www.displaysearch.com