#WIRELESS: "Touch mania swipes across markets"

Touchscreens have been available since the days of cathode-ray tubes, but the technology didn’t really catch on with consumers until mobile phone makers adopted it to solve the tiny-button problem. Now touchscreen smartphones and tablets collectively constitute the fastest-growing electronics market segment.

According to DisplaySearch (Santa Clara, Calif.), shipments of touchscreen tablets are forecast to reach 60 million units in 2011 and could top 260 million units by 2016. Add to that the more than 400 million mobile phone touchscreens predicted by IHS iSuppli Corp. (El Segundo, Calif.), and the total market could top $10 billion this year.

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