Developing Nations and SMEs Offer Good Growth Opportunities for the Handheld Terminals Market

Business Wire, June 30, 2008

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- The retail industry has undergone phenomenal changes over the last decade. With the increasing customer demands, retailers are under constant pressure to differentiate themselves by providing personalized and responsive customer service and deploy technology that enables real-time communication and inventory management, and improves productivity amongst other functions. Handheld terminals play a significant role in ensuring this differentiation by introducing mobility and real-time ability into the retail enterprise.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.kiosks.frost.com), World Quarterly Retail Systems Outlook on POS Systems; Handheld Terminals and Tablet PC Markets - Q4 2007, finds that the market earned a combined revenue of over $4.5 billion in 2007.

If you are interested in a virtual brochure, which provides manufacturers, end users, and other industry participants with an overview of the world quarterly retail systems outlook on pos systems; handheld terminals and tablet pc markets - Q4 2007, then send an e-mail to Mireya Castilla, Corporate Communications, at mireya.castilla@frost.com, with your full name, company name, title, telephone number, company e-mail address, company website, city, state and country. Upon receipt of the above information, an overview will be sent to you by e-mail.

"Handheld terminals have played a significant role in introducing mobility and real time ability into the retail enterprise. They have enabled retailers to focus more valuable time on their customers, thereby boosting in-store productivity and efficiency as well as customer satisfaction," notes Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Prasanna Prakash. "They further aid in a wide range of functions such as inventory and promotions management, competitive pricing, cross selling, up selling, and better networking of stores across the world."

An increasing number of retailers alter their business models to provide an innovative experience to their customers and improve their bottom line growth. They also focus on forming strategic partnerships with solution providers to offer unique customer experiences within the store. Advanced wireless networks combined with handhelds allow store associates to manage the store from any location, thereby providing greater ease and reduced stock-outs. This multifunctional aspect of handhelds has resulted in its increasing demand across geographies.

However, increased competition as a result of industry consolidation, flexibility in usage, continued downward pressure on prices and margins, security issues, and application stability are some of the challenges that vendors need to overcome in order to improve their bottom line growth.

"Furthermore, technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) have not had the expected success ratio in the retail scenario," says Prakash. "In addition to its high costs of deployment, there is still a lot of instability involved in the technology."

Technology vendors in the POS, handheld terminals, and tablet PC space focus on providing multifunctional device architectures capable of forward and backward integration into the retail value chain starting from the warehouse to the customer.

Strategic partnership between technology vendors and retailers is key to address operational and profitability challenges and adapt to changing customer demands. Technology vendors also focus their sales efforts on small and medium enterprises, which is a largely untapped market.

World Quarterly Retail Systems Outlook on POS Systems; Handheld Terminals and Tablet PC Markets - Q4 2007 is part of the Kiosks & Retail Systems Growth Partnership Service program, which also includes research in the following markets: EFT POS Terminals, ATMS, Self checkouts, Kiosks, and Point of Sale Systems. All research services included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends that have been evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants. Interviews with the press are available.

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, partners with clients to accelerate their growth. The company's TEAM Research, Growth Consulting and Growth Team Membership[TM] empower clients to create a growth-focused culture that generates, evaluates and implements effective growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan employs over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 30 offices on six continents. For more information about Frost & Sullivan's Growth Partnerships, visit http://www.frost.com.

World Quarterly Retail Systems Outlook on POS Systems; Handheld
Terminals and Tablet PC Markets - Q4 2007

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