Smart Technologies is leading in installation of interactive whiteboards in educational institutions around the world.

This was revealed by a recently-released report by Decision Tree Consulting (DTC), an industry-leading UK research company that has documented interactive whiteboard sales for eight years.

The report also noted that Smart increased its 2007 product category share in the education segment by 4.4 points over 2006. The company’s closest competitor has less than half of Smart’s category share. Smart now holds 53 per cent of the product category share in the education segment in the United States and 57 per cent in the United Kingdom, it said in a statement.

DTC said 377,000 interactive whiteboards were sold to education institutions in 2007. The two geographies exhibiting the most significant growth were the United States (55 per cent) and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (48 per cent).

DTC forecasts that the worldwide interactive whiteboard category will increase by 200 per cent in the next five years and that one in six classrooms will have an interactive whiteboard by 2011.

“Smart continues to lead the interactive whiteboard product category in education with strong sales around the world,” said Smart chief executive officer Nancy Knowlton,.

“Regardless of the geography or rate of adoption, we strive to provide the best user experience supported by the best product design incorporating continuous customer feedback, and our customers continue to prefer our product over all others.”

“It comes as no surprise that Smart’s interactive whiteboards are in such demand around the world. Even in the Middle East, we have been witnessing a steady increase in demand for Smart’s products from education institutions across the region, and we are certain that this growth in demand will further increase in coming years,” said Maher Husseini, director of Intmark Distribution, Smart’s authorised Middle East distributor. – TradeArabia News Service