3M Expands in Touch-Screen Films Amid ‘Exploding’ Market

3M Co., whose electronics unit supplies components to Apple Inc., is raising a 4-year-old bet on rapid smartphone growth by expanding in touch-screen films, which are also used on tablet computers and e-book readers.

“The market is just exploding, and we are ahead of it,” Tony DeRose, business manager for 3M’s electronics markets materials unit, said in an interview. 3M values the global market for touch-screen materials at $2 billion and is boosting production capacity for optically clear adhesives, as the films are known, in South Korea, China, Taiwan and Singapore.