I finally get around to comment on the announcement of this report…

In early May, DisplaySearch announced its upcoming report “Touch Panel Market Analysis“. The announcement highlights some interesting data points:

• Touch panel market to grow to $3.3 billion and 660 million units by 2015
• Mobile phones will account for 34% of all touch panel shipments and 21% of revenues
• Shipments of touch enabled mobile phones will reach 223 million units by 2015
• Resistive touch solutions will retain 86%
• Resistive revenue share will drop from 78% in 2007 to 64% in 2015

The industry is currently investing heavily in R&D to develop new touch technologies, so I’m a bit surprised to see the lion’s share of both shipments and revenues for the next 7 years to be resistive touch. Could it be that DisplaySearch expects resistive multi-touch to stave off competing technologies?

 I’m cautious about reports that so obviously uses approximate figures ($3.3 billion / 660 million units = $5/unit), but I do interpret it as a validation point that Sima is on to something big and that we’ve only seen the beginning of multi-touch and gesture recognition in mobile and portable devices.

- Marten