One System, Many Channels

Evolution is a constant process of change. Tracking not only what is happening now but what will happen next is a difficult and fluid process. Yet if anyone is in a position to accurately gauge the current and future direction of POS technology, it is Greg Buzek, president of global research and advisory firm IHL Group. According to Buzek, POS evolution currently points in the directions of omnichannel and mobile.

“The single biggest trend we are seeing right now is the desire to move to a single transaction system that works across all of the channels,” Buzek said. “Many are looking at building the POS on top of the order management system, so that the same order, same inventory, same everything is in a single system, and that system serves up data to the POS.”

Beyond broad omnichannel functionality, Buzek also cited mobile as a major developing POS trend.

“Next would be mobile POS,” he concluded. “There are a lot of pilots and installs going in now. We should see this fully explode next year.”

According to IHL research, shipments of new mobile POS device shipments are expected to grow more than 95% worldwide and will surpass 108% growth in North America in 2014. Apple has a dominant share in mobile POS, at 39.9% installed worldwide, but Motorola Solutions, Hewlett Packard and Micros are showing the greatest shipment growth potential in 2014 — in some cases tripling the growth rate. Nowhere is this greater than North America.


In other IHL findings, 64% of current mobile POS devices are in a form factor of less than 5 inches in screen (phones). But that is changing. In North America, 64.6% of all new Mobile POS will be on phablets (screen sizes between 5 and 6 inches) or larger screens in 2014.