New research from iSuppli predicts strong growth for touchscreen technology in the market for digital signage and professional displays

The rise of the smartphone has spurred enormous interest in touchscreens. But now another area is putting this technology on centre stage: the market for digital signage and professional displays.

According to analyst firm iSuppli, in a report titled "Touchscreen Interfaces Driving Growth in Signage & Professional Markets," global shipments of touchscreen modules for applications are set to grow more than fivefold in the coming years, rising to 5.4 million units in 2013, up from 971,755 in 2009.

Education and conference rooms were the two biggest applications for touchscreens in the digital signage and professional display market in 2009, accounting for nearly 86% of the total unit shipments, the electronics research firm said. The third and fourth biggest applications are indoor venues and retail signage.

Shifts in market demand

By 2013, the key applications driving the touchscreen market will be education, indoor venues, conference rooms and retail signage, the analyst report forecast.

"Touchscreens have great appeal for use in front-projection interactive whiteboards in the education and conference room markets," said Sanju Khatri, principal signage/projection analyst for the California-based iSuppli.

"These whiteboards make it easy for teachers to enhance presentation content by integrating a wide range of material into a lesson, such as an image from the Internet, a graph from a spreadsheet or text from a Microsoft Word file, in addition to student and teacher annotations on these objects. They also allow teachers to create easily and rapidly customised learning objects from a range of existing content and to adapt it to the needs of the class in real time."

"At the same time, adding touch capability to digital signage opens up another dimension to screens and helps provide relevant information to a customer," he added.

A variety of touchscreen technologies are capable of being scaled up to a size suitable for use in signage and professional displays. These include resistive, optical imaging, electromagnetic, projected capacitive, bending wave, infrared and surface acoustic wave. However, the reports suggested no single technology is superior in determining the right touchscreen technology for the signage and professional market because each approach has its own set of advantages and disadvantages.

Different technologies compete for share

According to iSuppli, the dominant touchscreen technology used in signage and professional displays is resistive, accounting for 41.9% of units in 2009. The market for front-projection interactive whiteboards being used in conference rooms and educational settings accounts for most of these shipments. Resistive touch technology is the most mature and developed of all touchscreen technologies, making it the least expensive alternative.

By 2013, however, optical imaging will emerge as the leading single touchscreen technology in the signage and professional display market, accounting for 25.6% of worldwide unit shipments, according to the research. The dominant use for optical imaging touchscreen technology will be in conference rooms.

Optical imaging touch technology uses cameras to detect touch, gestures or other body movement. Associated software then processes the resulting signals to determine the touch point. In the case of gesture recognition, one's motion triggers an interactive response from the display system with which the person is interacting.

Optical imaging touchscreen technology is suitable for conference rooms because this technology offers cost-effective scaling to large sizes.