Samsung and Motorola are mobile touch screen leaders — MobileMonday Global: Industry News

^{Mobile touch screens to reach USD 5 billion next year} Samsung and Motorola are mobile touch screen leaders

10 Sep 2008 at 16:08 GMT Timo Poropudas

It took the Apple’s iPhone to really kick start the mobile touch screen boon even though touch screens have been available for some time and are found in a variety of fixed and portable devices. iPhone refocused the public’s attention on them as never before.

Shipments in 2007 of touch screen-based mobile devices increased 91% over 2006, and ABI Research forecasts that revenue from the global touch screen market for mobile phones and other handheld devices such as MIDs, UMPCs, and PNDs will reach USD 5 billion in 2009.

“Nearly all mobile handset manufacturers are getting into touch screens to a greater or lesser extent,” says ABI*s research director Kevin Burden.

“The acceptance of touch screens to date has varied by geographic region, which has been a significant factor in determining the success of individual handset vendors.”

Samsung and Motorola have been the most successful, commanding 33% and 30% shares of the touch screen mobile phone market respectively.

“Samsung and Motorola lead the market for touch screen phones primarily because of their scale and significant presence in the Asian markets,” says Burden.

“Because it’s difficult to represent even a fraction of the common Asian characters on a qwerty-style keyboard, touch screen devices on which characters can be written with a stylus are immensely popular. The Asia/Pacific market consumed more than 80% of the world’s touch screen-based mobile phone production over the past year.”

At 24% Sony Ericsson has the third-largest market share, while all the other handset vendors – including Apple – are essentially niche players.

A number of factors are driving further adoption of touch screen-based mobile devices. Consumers are looking for more intuitive user interfaces and personalization options as device functionality increases. Also, prices for touch components and panels continue to decrease and are falling on an average of nearly 10% per annum.