Year 2007 has been a fruitful year for the touch panel industry. With the wider applications of small- and medium-sized touch panels in such consumer electronics products as mobile phones, palm gaming machines and multi-media players, the overall touch panel market is expected to have an annual growth of 9% by 2009. This shows that the technology and interface highlighting humanity have been regarded passing the serious testing from the market and consumers. A bright perspective indicates that touch panels will extend to other application fields such as large-sized gaming machines, gambling machines, kiosks, medical instruments, ATMs, POS and GPS. Statistics says that the production value of the global touch panel market will grow from USD 2.8 billion in 2007 to USD 3.5 billion in 2010. It also predicts that large- and medium-sized touch panels will take over the growth driver since 2010.  

 

Though no one can clearly point out the trend of human beings interacting with machines, it is predictable that in several years, humanized touch panels will be one of the best ways. As a result, we may imagine that in the future, humanized touch panels can be seen in all kinds of occasions such as schools, homes, banks, airports, department stores. Noticeably, since 2007, the applications of large- and medium-sized touch panels in the retail market have shown an obvious growth; reports say that the market demand is about to reach 9 million units this year. The tablet PC market has also shown a roaring growth since 2007 due to the products' improving efficiency and slimmer sizes; the market demand may reach 3 million units this year.

In the past years, the myth about pursuing 'volume' normally exists in the IT industry. Most companies focus on the breakthough of shipping volume and crazily invest in some kind of 'hot hits' without worrying the problem of low profits. This situation has gradually emerged in the small- and medium-sized touch panel market. While portable devices such as mobile phones are getting more and more popular, and they have relatively lower technology threshold, the followers aggressively join the battle to share the pie. However, those companies have weaker control about the upstream materials, patents, and/or new technology, they may therefore lead the market to price war. Then, the struggle of those manufactuers for low-profit OEM would be coming. On the other hand, although the market demands for large- and medium-sized touch panels seem to be smaller, the higher product differentiation, fewer competition and better profits may help to form a new business model. Besides, the diversified technology of large- and medium-sized touch panels and higher threshold shall allow manufacturers to relatively easily survive in this globalized market, after they lead in competitive technology and strategic partners.

By observing the development of small- and medium-sized touch panel market, we may have a reasonable guess about the future of large- and medium-sized touch panels. Except for the growing demands from consumers, innovative technology indeed puts some impact. The core spirit is still that people want humanized interfaces to operate machines. In the future, we may dream about a perfect way to do so in different application fields and environments, enabling users to easily, conveniently and safely fullfill their needs.