Interactive Flat Panel Displays (IFPDs) continued to be a considerable success in 2018 in the education and corporate markets. By Q4, 83% of all interactive display sales were IFPDs, increasing from 73% last year, according to the latest research from Futuresource Consulting.
Some 55 of the 67 countries that Futuresource track had growth in 2018, with many countries growing by 100%. The Interactive Whiteboard (IWB), the original technology, is in decline, but it still contributes a significant volume.
The US had over 24% annual IFPD volume growth, with rapid transition to larger size IFPDs – well over half of sales are now over 70in. Over 3/4 of US classrooms now have an interactive display, and the level of growth is forecast to continue.
Previously, this market had been dominated by education, and specifically the K-12 market in the US. The corporate meeting room market has remained almost untapped, but the scale of the opportunity is vast, with 32 million corporate meeting rooms globally and well under 1 million displays installed to date
Vendors across a variety of product areas have entered the corporate meeting room market, with ISE 2019 seeing a proliferation of meeting room displays promoting collaboration via interactivity.
“The Samsung Flip is a cause of fast expansion in many countries,” said Colin Messenger, Senior Market Analyst at Futuresource Consulting. “The ‘Flip Chart’ format is expected to be followed by many other brands, some early models were on show at ISE 2019 from i3 Technologies and Sharp.
“Providers are leveraging their existing channel and user relationships and promoting ‘all-in-one’ meeting room solutions. The volume of interactive displays sold into the corporate market expanded over 100% in 2018,” adds Messenger.
Most vendors now have screen sharing capabilities with multiple devices, often as standard. 4K and multi touch (10 to 20 points) are now standard, with most offerings having at least ten touch points. Panel providers are rapidly transitioning large screen sizes (60″+) to 4K from 1080p.
“The trend towards more display personalisation continues. It’s very useful for a teacher or corporate user moving between classroom/meeting room, to be able to set-up the display to a pre-set height, content and configuration via biometric fingerprint reader or NFC card control,” comments Messenger.
