News from November 25, Beijing time, a brief analysis of the development of large-size interactive tablet capacitive touch technology and industry chain issues. The latest "Quarterly Report on Interactive Flat Panel Market Analysis in Mainland China" released by RUNTO presents several key data: In the first three quarters of 2021, the overall shipments of the LCD interactive flat panel (excluding projection whiteboards) market in Mainland China exceeded 154 10,000 units, an increase of 41.2 percent year-on-year. Among them, the penetration rate of capacitive touch technology is close to 20 percent , compared with 8.7 percent in 2018, which has more than doubled in three years.
2018-2021 China Mainland LCD Interactive Panel Touch Technology Structure
Data source: RUNTO, unit: percent
User experience forces the rapid and diversified development of touch capacitive technology
The development of capacitive touch technology is the result of many factors intertwined. The deepest reason is that although interactive tablets belong to the category of commercial products, in the Internet age, the promotion of all products is transforming from functional introduction to experiential recommendation, and product marketing has changed from a manufacturer's perspective to a user's perspective. This requires enterprise products to accelerate innovation and continue to achieve benign iterations. As far as interactive tablets are concerned, the convenience, sensitivity, and accuracy of human-machine touch interaction are the biggest concerns in the product experience process, as well as the most concentrated technical points of various materials and process innovations. With the gradual maturity of technology, capacitive touch satisfies the experience needs.
Particularly affected by the popularity of smart phones, manufacturers and end users pay more attention to capacitive touch large-screen products. RUNTO has sorted out the current mainstream capacitor technology solutions based on the current market.
Capacitive touch technology still has problems affecting the determination of the industry chain to popularize
Although capacitive touch technology has achieved rapid penetration on large-size interactive tablets, there are still many pain points and problems, which to a certain extent restrict the rapid development of the capacitive touch industry chain.
In addition to In-cell, the current capacitive touch technology has widely used separate touch diaphragms. It needs to go through many processes such as substrate processing, post-process processing, etc., firstly be transported to the downstream module factory for laminating, and then transported to the complete machine factory for assembly testing and final acceptance. The product lead time is too long, resulting in increased processing variables, unpredictable product straight-through rate, and transportation losses caused by the dispersion of upstream and downstream enterprises, which ultimately results in product yields lower than expected, increased ineffective costs, and insufficient overall delivery capabilities.
For brand manufacturers, the lack of product straight-through rate and yield increases the risk of material preparation and the delivery risk of end users. Under the condition of holding the bargaining power, it will certainly pass on uncontrollable risks, causing the profits of upstream companies to peel off. The large investment of enterprises in each link, but the small gains, will naturally weaken the determination of the entire industry chain to promote the popularization of large-screen capacitive touch. Under such circumstances, due to the cost advantages of infrared technology, the "bilateral" and "four-sided" solutions quickly penetrated into the educational LCD blackboard, which was originally the largest and most core application of capacitive touch technology, and the proportion reached in the third quarter. 16.6 percent .
On the whole, the experience of using smartphones has driven people's demand for interaction with display products, and touch control has become a rigid demand for interaction. Ms. Wang Yuhong, COO of RUNTO, believes that while companies continue to develop touch materials and technologies with superior performance, they need to continuously optimize and integrate the entire industry chain to further accelerate the popularization of large-size interactive tablet capacitive touch technology.
