| Windows OSes dominate rapidly growing POS terminal market |
Mar. 09, 2005
North American retailers spent over $6.5 billion on POS terminals in 2004, according to a new market study from IHL Consulting Group. This represents an "outstanding" 12 percent unit growth rate over 2003 and a continuing "boom" for POS (point of sales/service) hardware, software and services, according to IHL, which expects growth to be even higher in 2005. Overall, Microsoft Windows OSes account for 71 percent of the market, the report found.
In its 2005 North American Retail POS Terminal Study, IHL concluded that shipments of Windows 2000/XP-based terminals represented 56 percent of the overall market. Windows 9x/CE represented another 15 percent of the shipments for a total of 71 percent of the market. Additionally, the report found that shipments of Linux-based POS units increased 34 percent year-to-year, but still represent only 6 percent of the overall market. This is expected to rise dramatically in future years, according to the report.
2004 operating system use by POS market segment
| DOS | 4690 | Win9x/CE | NT/2000/XP | Linux | Other | | Food - Supermarket | 6% | 44% | 3% | 43% | 4% | 0% | | Drug Stores | 1% | 49% | 9% | 40% | 1% | 0% | | Superstore - Warehouse | 0% | 76% | 0% | 24% | 0% | 0% | | Department Stores | 37% | 16% | 7% | 40% | 0% | 0% | | Specialty Category Killers | 6% | 5% | 7% | 68% | 14% | 0% | | Specialty - Other | 5% | 7% | 15% | 68% | 5% | 0% | | Mass Merchandisers | 4% | 58% | 0% | 38% | 0% | 0% | | Convenience - Gas | 3% | 0% | 14% | 62% | 3% | 18% | | Bar - Restaurant | 8% | 0% | 33% | 55% | 4% | 0% | | Quick Service - Fast Food | 5% | 0% | 33% | 57% | 5% | 0% | | TOTALS: | 7% | 15% | 15% | 56% | 6% | 1% |
(Source: IHL)
"2004 was an outstanding year of unit growth for vendors, particularly in specialty stores, table service restaurants, and super centers," said Greg Buzek, president of IHL Consulting Group, a research and advisory firm that serves retailers and retail technology vendors. "Looking ahead, our research indicates that every segment of the retail industry will increase its POS purchases in 2005 over 2004 as retailers upgrade to more reliable and easier to use systems." The 2004 POS revenue growth, however, lagged unit growth because of the continuing decline of PC hardware targeted at this market by Dell and HP.
"Across every segment of the industry, retailers are poised to make technology decisions that will have a major impact on the marketplace, creating a steady stream of opportunity for POS vendors over the next two to three years," continued Buzek. "Although sometimes begrudgingly, a retailer's budgets have been unlocked, and retailers want to use their dollars to update, upgrade and move to next-generation technologies. POS systems and self-checkout systems are where most of the IT budgets for retailers are going the next two years."
The IHL report tallies the shipments and installed base of POS terminals sold to retailers in North America and provides a situation analysis for ten retail market segments, discusses overall trends affecting the POS market, and offers forecasts through 2009.
Further information on IHL's report is available on the research firm's website.
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