Research and Markets is the latest company to predict a date when touchscreen phone sales will outnumber non-touch handsets. Earlier this year Gartner said touchscreen mobile devices would account for 58% of all mobile sales worldwide in just three years’ time.
Research and Markets is a little more cautious, forecasting that over half of handsets shipped worldwide in 2015 will have touchscreens.
It also predicts that by 2015, almost a quarter (22%) of mobile devices will support handwriting recognition. China, with a language that consists of around 20 thousand characters, is said to present the greatest demand. The company reckons that 78% of all smartphones shipping into Asia by 2015 will support handwriting recognition technology.