Touchscreen phones are becoming commonplace in Ireland and rapidly so: the number purchased has grown fast from one in every four phones purchased in January to almost one in every three currently.
This rapid adoption of touchscreen phones by the general public was noted by UK market research company GfK Retail and Technology, who also found that smartphones were on the rise.
The smartphone now has 16pc of the mobile phone market share here in Ireland, having doubled in number from 8pc since January 2010.
One of the chief reasons that GfK carried out this research was to point out the difference between smartphone and touchscreen, the latter of which is often assumed to be a smartphone itself by virtue of the touchscreen interface.
It was found that 63.4pc of all touchscreen handsets sold in the year to date as of April 2010 can be classed as traditional mobile phones, possessing neither advanced operating system nor full email client.
This research indicated that the majority of mobile phones users in Ireland have yet to embrace the smartphone and accompanying app culture.
GfK began tracking the Irish mobile phone market in February 2010 and takes sales information directly from EPOS records provided by retail and operator partners.
By Marie Boran
Photo: The Samsung Tocco Lite – touchscreen but not ‘smart’
