Writing not yet on wall for UK

Analysts point resellers towards the untapped corporate market to bolster flagging sales of interactive whiteboards

Fresh tactics are needed to boost sales of interactive whiteboards in the UK, despite revenues soaring in the rest of the world.

According to Futuresource, interactive whiteboard sales in the second quarter of 2008 were 42 per cent up on the previous year ­ the highest since the UK-based analyst firm started tracking the market in 2002.

Total global sales for the year are tipped to exceed $1bn (£547m). However, UK sales of interactive whiteboards have dropped.

Futuresource analyst Colin Messenger said a total of 26,000 interactive whiteboards were bought in the UK in the first six months of 2008, with 57,000 expected to be sold by the end of the year.

“Last year [2007] we had a total of 73,000. That is a drop of about 28 per cent,” he said.
Sales could still rise significantly although this is not expected, according to Messenger, as the greatest volumes of interactive whiteboards are normally moved in the third quarter ready for the academic year.

“The UK is going the other way because we hit our maximum growth [in this market] three years ago,” he said.
“The UK is probably four years ahead of the rest of the world, including the EU countries. Simply put, it goes back to [former prime minister Tony] Blair’s focus on education.”

Futuresource said that the way forward for UK resellers is in new technologies.

The benefits of visualisers and voting systems, for instance, still had to be demonstrated to classrooms, said Messenger.
And education resellers with the right contacts could also push interactive whiteboard equipment to the largely untapped corporate market.

“You need to show them the benefits; you cannot just tell them about it,” said Messenger. “In companies there could still be some very fast growth.”

Although the UK has seen the best growth likely from interactive whiteboards, the long-term future for the sector is still strong, and Futuresource has predicted a fourth-quarter increase of five per cent.

The Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative is more on track, with six waves of adoption now operational in around 1,000 schools.

A second wave of adoption is also emerging, driven by replacements as the earliest boards deployed are now approaching 10 years of age.