Touch Screen Chip Market Ignited by iPhone and iPad

By Douglas Perry
published

A quickly rising demand for touch screen devices will trickle down to a equally fast increasing demand for touch controller integrated circuits (ICs) and triple that market within five years, IHS estimates.

According to the market research firm, 2.4 billion touch controller ICs will be shipped in 2015, up from just 865 million in 2010. In 2011, the volume is forecast to hit a staggering 1.7 billion units.

“The expansion in touch controller IC shipments is due to the growing number of devices that employ touch technology,” said Randy Lawson, principal analyst for display and consumer electronics at IHS.

“Apple almost single-handedly ignited the market for touch in 2007 when it introduced the iPhone, which featured a multi-touch screen based on a projected capacitive touch technology," Lawson added. "Since the appearance of the iPhone, many other smartphone manufacturers have jumped on the bandwagon by deploying sophisticated touch sensors for their products.”

However, it is not just the smartphone and tablet that is supporting that growth. IHS noted that there are also ereaders, all-in one PCs, portable media players, portable navigation devices, flat-panel TVs and monitors, handheld video game players, automotive applications, digital still cameras and digital picture frames that push the segment.

IHS believes that 1.06 billion touch devices will ship this year, up from 515 million in 2010. Apple products accounted for 54 percent of touch screen products shipped in 2011.

Douglas Perry
8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • silverblue
    Apple sold 315 million touch screen devices in 2011. Short of a figure of how many actual touch screen devices sold in 2011 (not ICs), it's not easy to work out the percentage. If I was to estimate based off the apparent fact that 1 device was sold for every 1.6 integrated circuits in 2010, this would be in the order of 25-30% of all devices in 2011, but we know that wouldn't be accurate.

    http://macintude.net/2012/03/07/apple-announces-new-sales-figures/

    In fact, I dug deeper and found the following:

    http://tabtimes.com/news/ittech-stats-research/2012/03/28/iphone-ipad-lead-way-booming-sales-touchscreen-chips

    I quote:

    "Capacitive touch screens, like those first used by Apple in its various iDevices, made up 54% of the touch market in 2011."

    That's quite different to what you've stated above.

    The original source article is as follows:

    http://www.isuppli.com/Home-and-Consumer-Electronics/MarketWatch/Pages/Touch-Controller-IC-Market-to-Nearly-Triple-in-Just-Five-Years.aspx

    I'm not trying to show you up for every article you post, Douglas, but I simply felt the need to point out an error, that's all.
    Reply
  • onanonanon
    Regardless of the detail, surely "Touch Screen Chip Market Ignited by iPhone and iPad" is stating the bleeding obvious? Since touchscreen devices were made commonplace by the advent of the iPhone then the components used to make them would have gone into high scale production. It's like saying the advent of the Ford Model T ignited the car parts industry and expecting anyone to be surprised.
    Reply
  • avalach21
    What about the Nintendo DS? That came out in 2004, sold over 100 million units. I think it played a large roll in popularizing touch screen tech and making it mainstream
    Reply
  • seels
    Apple ignited not only the smartphone world, but the entire technological world. They're a company who will strive to make the best products, and always have. I have never seen such an amazing company. Every time I pick up my Mac, iPhone, and iPad, I'm enriched with a plethora of positive feelings and simply glad to be alive.
    Reply
  • irish_adam
    seelsApple ignited not only the smartphone world, but the entire technological world. They're a company who will strive to make the best products, and always have. I have never seen such an amazing company. Every time I pick up my Mac, iPhone, and iPad, I'm enriched with a plethora of positive feelings and simply glad to be alive.
    Thats got to be trolling :P
    Reply
  • bender3000
    irish_adamThats got to be trolling
    Should we expect anything less from someone drinking the kool-aid? :)
    Reply
  • Partizan92
    the best manufacturer to be these days is Atmel.. their series of maxTouch controllers is dominating the market.. if you follow the taredowns of smartphones and tablets you will find out that most of them are using Atmel touch controllers
    Reply
  • halcyon
    Apple makes cool stuff...but....

    - sent from my RAZR Maxx
    Reply