Mobile News

Touchscreen phone popularity to grow in 2011

Wednesday, 24 March 2010

By James Sherwood james@consumerchoices.co.uk

You’ll buy a phone with a vibrating touchscreen and mobile web access next year, predicts report.

Touchscreens will be a feature of 60% of mobiles shipped to Europe and the US next year, according to an industry forecast. .

The report, compiled by leading market analyst Gartner, said touchscreens are emerging as the “dominant user interface for large-screen handsets”.

It will also become more common for touchscreen phones to have vibrating displays next year, Gartner added. The feature - known as haptic touch – is useful when typing texts using an onscreen keyboard because it helps verify exactly which letter you pressed.

Similarly, the report forecast 85% of mobiles shipped globally next year would have some form of web browser.

“Growth in smartphones with relatively large and high-resolution screens will encourage greater numbers of people to access conventional websites on mobile devices,” the report said.

Among Gartner’s other mobile-related predictions for 2011 is the forecast that over 75% of phones shipped to “mature markets” such as Europe will support GPS. App stores, as made famous by the iPhone, will also become more popular next year.