Panasonic Touts Bendable Touchscreens

Panasonic Corp. will start making flexible touchscreen displays in late September at its plant in China's Shandong province.

The new panels can be curved to allow greater design flexibility. Panasonic adds that the advanced capacitive-type touchscreens have a plastic covering and high-sensitivity film sensors that respond more quickly when touched even when users are wearing gloves.

Manufacturers also can mount control switches directly on the new screens.

Panasonic is targeting overall sales of its automotive touchscreens to grow to more than 20 billion yen ($158 million) in fiscal 2019, which would double last year's sales of such products.