Touchscreen Devices on the Rise

Thanks to iPhone, touchscreen cell phone adoption in the U.S. is swelling at such a rapid rate over the past year. Its growth rate has significantly surpassed that of the overall smartphone market, reports comScore.

Based on a study released by the market research company, the number of people who own touchscreen based devices in the U.S. has skyrocketed by 159 percent between August 2008 and 2009, up from 9.2 million to 23.8 million users. By comparison, the adoption of smartphones also saw a 63 percent jump, translating into 33.7 million users by August 2009. The figures reveal that consumers are increasingly embracing touchscreen interfaces to navigate in a more intuitive and easy-to-use way.

Unsurprisingly, the Apple iPhone was the one who set the trend in the industry for touchscreen devices. By making up nearly one-third (32.9 percent) of all touch-sensitive phones owned by users aged 13 and older, the iPhone ranked as the top and is far ahead of other handsets.

The LG Dare and the LG Voyager took the distant second and third places, accounting for 8.7 percent and 7.8 percent of the market respectively. The BlackBerry Storm followed behind with 7.0 percent, while Palm Treo captured 6.5 percent. Other devices that made the top-ten list are Samsung Instinct, T-Mobile G1, HTC Touch, Samsung Glyde and LG Xenon.

Another worth mentioning fact is that touchscreen handsets are more popular among younger users. According to ComScore, owners of touchscreen devices represent more than half of all mobile subscribers. It is also found that 20.6 percent of touchscreen users range in age between 18 and 24, while only less than 5 percent are 65 and older.

Looking ahead, with more new touchscreen-centric handsets, particularly those running the Android operating system, flooding into the mobile marketplace, competition will continue to heat up and we can expect to see an even higher adoption rate in the near future.

Tags: iPhone Accessories, LG Accessories, BlackBerry Accessories, Palm Treo Accessories, Samsung Accessories, T-Mobile Accessories, HTC Accessories