Marketshare of capacitive touchscreen devices to rise in 2010

Based on a report by Telecoms Korea , the marketshare of touchscreen phones has increased from 13.9% of all cellphones shipped in 2007 to 37.2% in 2009. With those figures in mind, it is not surprising that two Korean manufacturers are planning on producing more touchscreen models in 2010. Samsung is forecast to ship 57 million touchscreen handsets in 2009, increasing by 100 million units next year, which works out to 45% of all of the company's cellphone shipments. Shinhan Investments says that fellow Korean cellphone maker LG plans on making a smaller, more gradual increase as it's touchscreen production will rise from 36% of all phones produced by the company in 2009, to 40% of total production in 2010.

The two Korean firms also are increasing the percentage of touchscreen phones using a capacitive display rather than the resistive display that requires pressure from anything that can be pressed on the screen, like a finger, stylus or pen cap. Capacitive screens turn the touch of a finger into electrical charges that the screen reads to move items around.. Samsung expects that 65% of it's touchscreens will have capacitive display in 2010 while 20% of LG's touchscreen phones are expected to be capacitive next year. While more expensive than resistive displays, the number of phones using capacitive screens is expected to rise nearly fourfold from 2008 to the end of 2013, thanks to the popularity of handsets like the Apple iPhone, the BlackBerry Storm2, the Palm Pre and the Motorola DROID-all of which use the more costly type of display.

source: TelecomsKorea via UnwiredView