POS terminal numbers continue strong growth, despite smartphone popularity

Franklin, Tenn. -- The overall penetration of POS devices continued to expand 3.9% in North America and 4.6% around the globe in 2012, according to The POS Vendor Shipments Database, released Wednesday by IHL Group. Growth is expected to continue at 3.6% worldwide for 2013.  

The report showed growth in all four major worldwide regions (North America, Europe/Middle East Africa, Latin/South America, and Asia/Pacific). The Asia/Pacific region led all regions in terms of growth, but even the economic challenges of most of the EMEA region did not completely squash growth, which came in at over 2% year over year.

"The market continues to grow as POS technologies rapidly change in individual segments,” said Greg Buzek, president of IHL Group. "Despite challenges from mobile devices and e-commerce growth, new store concepts and greater penetration of PC-based POS continue to offset those challenges as the point-of-sale remains the center of the customer interaction."

The POS Vendor Shipments Database tracks the shipments and installed base of PC-based point-of-sale devices by top 25 vendors and 13 different retail segments worldwide.  

Other key findings of the research included the following:

• The big winner in the POS growth is Microsoft, whose operating systems already run on over 87% of the POS terminals shipped.  

• HP is now the second largest supplier of POS Systems worldwide, rising from the #20 position just 10 years ago. Add to HP's share standard PCs purchased and repurposed by small businesses for POS and the company would have the #1 position.

• The value of the North American POS Market topped $7.8 billion for the first time in 2012.

• Brazil, Mexico, China, India and certain Middle Eastern countries are driving POS adoption at the fastest clips.