Milestone result of strong global demand from education and business customers
CALGARY, AB --- March 17, 2009 --- SMART Technologies announces that it has surpassed CDN$2 billion in cumulative sales. The result comes only two years after the company reached CDN$1 billion in sales. Demand has been fueled in education by overwhelming evidence that information and communication technology such as interactive whiteboards can positively affect student achievement, and in business by interest in collaboration tools that connect globally dispersed teams. More than one million SMART Board™ interactive whiteboards have been installed since SMART began shipping the product in 1991. SMART earned a 53.2 percent share of the global interactive whiteboard product category in 2008, according to Futuresource Consulting, a leading global research company that has tracked interactive whiteboard shipments for almost nine years. Most SMART products are sold to education customers, and the company estimates that more than 20 million teachers and students use its products in more than 175 countries around the world. With a compound annual growth rate of 35 percent over a five-year period, and 37 percent over a 10-year period, the privately owned company continues to lead the global interactive whiteboard product category.
For more than 20 years, SMART has developed and refined its SMART Board interactive whiteboard. The company has steadily expanded its Canadian-based operations to meet increasing global demand for a wide range of popular education, training and collaboration products. SMART acknowledges the strong contributions of its staff, resellers and suppliers in reaching this milestone, and it continues to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit that has driven it from the start by remaining committed to research and development, and adding to its growing patent portfolio. SMART employs more than 1,300 people globally, with offices in Canada, the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore and China.
“Reaching this milestone is not just a testament to the large number of SMART staff who deliver to a high standard of excellence and customer service in their work every day, but to customers themselves, who continue to choose our products for a variety of applications,” says Nancy Knowlton, SMART’s CEO. “We are very excited about the future as we continue to develop products, content and services that delight our customers.”
A brief history of the SMART Board interactive whiteboard
Over 20 years ago, SMART executive chairman and co-founder, David Martin, conceptualized the SMART Board interactive whiteboard – the first and most widely installed interactive whiteboard in the world. In 1991, the first-generation SMART Board interactive whiteboard was introduced. Currently in its sixth generation, the SMART Board interactive whiteboard product line has expanded to include a wide range of sizes and models, integrated systems with projectors and room control options, and feature-rich software. Today, SMART is recognized worldwide as an innovator of award-winning hardware and software for customers who meet, teach, train and present.
