It’s a good time to be in the touchscreen business. Thanks to the frenzy that has attended every step of the launch of the iPad, and no shortage of companies developing rival devices, touchscreen shipments are projected to jump 5,000 percent this year, according to research from the supply-chain analysis firm iSuppli.
And it won’t end there. iSuppli looks ahead to a seven-fold increase through 2013, noting that keyboard-less slate computers are the fastest-growing segment of the broader PC market. Hardware Central has the details.
To say the touchscreen market is taking off may be an understatement: Bolstered by sales of Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) hit iPad and its competitors, shipments of touchscreens for similar devices are set to rise by some 5,000 percent in 2010, according to iSuppli — growing to 8.9 million from just 176,000 in 2009.
There’s no slowing down going forward, either. iSuppli predicts shipments of iPad-like “slate” PCs will grow by a factor of seven by 2013, to 63.9 million units. As a result, iSuppli noted that the market for such slate devices — defined by their lack of a physical keyboard — is the fastest-growing segment of the larger tablet PC market.