Voting systems fail to reach predicted level

UK sales of interactive voting systems fall drastically below DTC's predicted figure

UK sales of interactive voting systems for 2006 failed to reach the 500,000 level predicted by Decision Tree Consulting (DTC), with 201,000 handsets actually sold last year.

Colin Messenger, senior consultant at DTC, said: “It is still a 20 per cent increase on the 162,000 sold in 2005, but it is down on where we had expected the voting market to be by the end of 2006. However, there are now five key players in the market – previously there were just two – and this year we anticipate over 350,000 systems will be sold in the UK.”

Promethean held onto the top spot in the sector with market share of 26 per cent. Turning Technologies maintained second place with 16.6 per cent, while vendors Qwizdom, Interwrite Learning and Fleetwood all gained momentum, said DTC.

Gary Morrison, sales director at Qwizdom, said: “There is still a ‘wait and see’ approach with voting systems. There have been a few early adopters, but the majority of people will wait for systems to become mainstream.”

However, Morrison believes the launch of a voting system from vendor Smart Technologies in the summer will grow the market.

“Smart has become such a huge brand name in education with its interactive whiteboards that schools are bound to sit up and take notice when it launches its Senteo voting system,” said Morrison.

Steljes is the sole distributor for Smart in the UK as well as Turning Technologies’ Turning Point voting system. Mitt Nathwani, product manager for Turning Point at Steljes, said: “We will distribute both. Senteo is suited to primary schools whereas Turning Point is very appealing to primary and secondary schools, and universities.”

Q2 worldwide sales of interactive voting systems top 750,000