• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, March 4, 2010

Touchscreens aren't just for smartphones anymore. Gartner Thursday released research predicting the worldwide market for touchscreen devices will nearly double this year to 362.7 million units, accounting for more than 27% of all phone sales. And that proportion will increase to 58% globally, and 80% in mature markets like North America and Western Europe.

As more mid-range phones get touchscreens, mobile users become aware of the benefits the technology offers and growing consumer demand in turn encourages handset makers to introduce more touchscreen devices, according to Gartner.

Touchscreens may not be the panacea the research firm suggests. Anyone who's ever tried to type on a touchscreen phone, yes, even an iPhone, knows that hitting virtual buttons can be a frustrating experience compared to using an actual Qwerty keyboard. Small icons, glitchy screens that get stuck and don't respond to finger taps, and higher battery usage and higher repair costs are other potential drawbacks with using touchscreens rather than standard keypads.

Even so, the spread of touchscreen devices should help to broaden the audience for mobile media beyond smartphones since their larger screens and more intuitive navigation make it easier for people to access content from videos to games to the Web.

That means a blurring of the digital divide that now exists between smartphone and regular phone users, with the former accounting for an outsize proportion of mobile Web and multimedia activity. New data from comScore yesterday, for instance, showed that smartphone users showed that almost a third (30.7%) of smartphone owners visited a social networking site in January compared to only about 7% of feature phone users.

The proliferation of more media-friendly touchscreens could also give developers more incentive to create applications for a wider array of devices and prompt marketers to look beyond smartphones in running mobile brand campaigns.

Gartner points out that a touchscreen alone won't convince someone to buy a certain device. It has to be combined with good interface design, applications and services to win over consumers. So the fake buttons not only have to work smoothly but lead to programs people find useful, entertaining or enlightening. That's where the media world has to deliver.