After several years of struggle, the worldwide PC-based point-of-sale (POS) market grew 6.9 percent in 2010, but rising fuel prices and new mobile devices are expected to the challenge the traditional POS industry, according to new research from IHL Group, a global research and advisory firm.

Shipments grew in the four major regions--North America, Europe/Middle East Africa, Latin/South America and Asia/Pacific. New shipments in China, India, Korea and Indonesia drove double-digit growth in the Asia/Pacific region, reports IHL, which is based in Franklin,Tenn.

"It was a strong year overall, but several threats appear on the horizon for this market,” said Greg Buzek, president of IHL Group. "New mobile devices, inspired by the Apple iPad, with a price point of $500, are a significant threat to the traditional POS market, particularly for specialty stores and hospitality establishments. Our recent research studies found that upwards of 50 percent of specialty retailers are looking to deploy handheld POS devices to replace many of their standard POS systems.”

“In addition, increasing oil prices due to unrest in the Middle East will sap consumer’s wallets, which will challenge retail sales in other segments beyond fuel,” added Buzek. “Every penny of sustained increase in fuel prices takes $1.6 billion annually out of the pockets of consumers in the U.S. alone. If we go to a sustained $4 a gallon price point for a year, that is over $100 billion lost from the retail economy within the next year.”

Other key findings of the research include the following:

• the shipment share of POS units with embedded operating systems from Microsoft increased to 34.1 percent worldwide.
• overall, 87.4 percent of POS Terminals shipped were on DOS or Microsoft Windows platforms.
• the shipment share of Linux terminals dropped from 10.1 percent in 2009 to 8.4 percent in 2010 worldwide but remains a popular choice in China, Russia and several other countries around the world.

IHL's 2011 North American Retail POS Terminal Study reviews the shipments and installed base of POS terminals sold to retailers in North America. The study includes market shipment and installed base figures, market value, situation analysis for 10 retail market segments, overall trends affecting the POS market and forecasts through 2013.