Disqus
After years of hype, mobile Location Based Services (LBS) are finally gaining traction among mobile phone users. This growth is driven on the supply side by a growing number of GPS-equipped handsets, and on the demand side by surging consumer interest in personal navigation functionality. According to a new report from ABI Research, LBS revenue is expected to reach an annual global total of $13.3 billion by 2013, up from an estimated $515 million during 2007.
Even though personal navigation is expected to remain the most popular consumer application over the next several years, other services like friend-finder, local information searches, family tracker applications, and enterprise applications – will all find niches under the LBS umbrella.
ABI Research industry analyst Jamie Moss argues that personal navigation and enterprise services are projected to be the highest revenue-generating services of the five LBS categories profiled, and are forecast to be worth about $4.3 billion and $6.5 billion respectively, per annum, by 2013.
However there are still important service-related developments needed to ensure LBS’s future success — the wider availability of unlimited data plans will spur service usage. In addition, the cross-network interoperability of services is also important. Once services provided by one carrier are capable of seamlessly incorporating users from other networks, then the usage of LBS will be driven virally by the desire to respond to and interact with friends and family on other networks…
More information about ABI Research’s “Mobile Location Based Services” report could be found on their website.
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
