The 60 percent of the Global touchscreen controller ICs market has been acquired by three companies – Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC), MediaTek Inc. (TPE:2454) and Elan Microelectronics Corp. (TPE:2458), reports DIGITIMES citing Industry Sources.
The growth of the global touchscreen chip market has been tremendous at a CAGR of more than 20 percent over the past few years. This market has lured nothing less than 50 chipset suppliers, which include over 20 suppliers from Taiwan.
MediaTek Inc. (TPE:2454), which is one of the market leaders, boasts of production capacity of 10 million touchscreen controller ICs per month along with its subsidiaries MStar Semiconductor and Goodix Technology, according to the information of sources.
Intel Corporation (INTC) Expanding
The dominant chip maker Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) is expanding itself into the segment of touch controller IC by putting funds in IC design companies such as FocalTech Systems and Egalaxy-empia Technology (EETI).
In China, FocalTech is the most dominant player in the segment of smartphone-use touchscreen controllers. The company has further gained some momentum in its sales of tablet segment as well. The other company EETI is paving its way to successfully penetrate in the controller IC market for notebooks and ultra-books as per the information from sources.
Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) is in quest of adapting with the current technology and market trends and has taken some major initiatives in the past. The efforts of Intel are expected to pay as the demand and shipments of the touch enabled mobile PC is estimated to surge in 2013 and beyond.
Elan Microelectronics Corp. Getting Bigger
Elan Microelectronics Corp. (TPE:2458) has locked in many orders to provide touchscreen controller ICs to the Smartphone makers other than Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), to tablet manufacturers and also to the retailers of notebooks and ultra-books. This Taiwan based company got many orders after it won a case against Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). The case was related to the patent manufacture of touch controller ICs.
Elan Microelectronics Corp. (TPE:2458) has received orders from many big companies such as Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) to supply touchscreen controller ICs for its product Nexus 7. The company has also got orders from Lenovo Group Limited (ADR) (PINK:LNVGY) to supply the smartphone-use touch controller for its smartphones. The other companies are ZTE, Huawei Technology, Coolpad and Haier.
As per the data collected by the IHS, the shipments of touchscreen incorporating notebooks will increase to 78 million units in 2016, an increase from the meagre 4.6 million in 2012. The year 2013 is expected to be the remarkable year for touch enabled notebooks as the prices will come down to $35 from $60-$70 for the 14 inch capacitive touchscreen display panels.
