Audiovisual (AV) distributor Steljes has firmly rooted SMART Technologies as the market leader in the Irish interactive whiteboard (IWB) market, after nearly doubling its market share in two years.

Figures from analyst Decision Tree Consulting, have revealed the SMART Board now holds a 40 per cent share of the market.

Steljes, which opened an Irish office in April, renegotiated an exclusive five-year partnership with SMART Technologies in January.

SMART Board IWBs are used teach over 18 million students in more than 600,000 classrooms, in 100 countries across the world.

Graham Wylie, group product marketing director at Steljes, sole distributor of SMART Technologies in Ireland, said: “Steljes is seeing significant growth in the Irish interactive whiteboard market.

“Technology is becoming an integral part of any classroom, and schools are increasingly committed to offering the best learning experience to their students. SMART Boards provide students with an interactive, enriched experience in the classroom.”

SMART supports the role out of its technology to schools through SMART Education Development Consultants (EDCs), which are qualified teachers as well as SMART specialists.

Wylie added: “A contributor to growth and a key benefit that SMART offers to adopters of our technologies is access to EDCs. They are unique in the industry as they provide not only a huge amount of expertise in SMART’s entire range of classroom technology solutions, but are also teachers that understand student’s real needs.”