Research firm iSuppli says that global shipments of touchscreen displays, spurred by the popularity of Apple’s iPhone, are set to more than double from 2008 to 2012. According to the research firm’s latest report, the worldwide market for touchscreen modules will amount to 341 million units and $3.4 billion in value this year.

iSuppli forecasts that the market will grow to 833 million units by 2013, with revenue expected to reach $6.4 billion by 2013.

“The total number of touchscreen technologies including those in production and emerging products has increased from 16 distinct approaches in mid-2007 to 20 different touchscreen technologies this month,” said Jennifer Colegrove, senior analyst for emerging displays at iSuppli, in a statement. “New touchscreen technologies are being commercialized and 12 types of touchscreen technologies now have commenced mass production.”

Many companies started touchscreen manufacturing and integration in 2007 and more are starting in 2008. But iSuppli warns that this market is still volatile due to acquisitions, and different technologies will flourish while some will die out.

Despite the total of eight distinct, commercialized touchscreen technologies, iSuppli expects even more novel touchscreen approaches are being invented. These include new touch technologies from N-trig, Samsung, Sony, Sharp and TMD.