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Shipments of GPS-enabled handsets will hit a speed-bump in 2009, but will still manage to post year-to-year unit growth through the current economic downturn. According to a new market study by ABI Research, while global mobile phone shipments are expected to drop by 4-5% in 2009, GPS-enabled phones will climb to 240 million units, an increase of 6.4% over 2008 — all thanks to the ongoing demand for feature-rich smartphones.
Although slowing slightly this year, demand for smartphones will increase at an average annual unit shipment rate of 19% through 2014. During the period, GPS chipsets will continue to penetrate this segment with 9 of every 10 smartphones containing GPS in 2014 — compared with one in three last year.
Other factors that will continue the trend toward the inclusion of GPS functionality in handsets include the spread of open source operating systems such as Google’s Android, and the continuing emergence of navigation and map-based applications for handsets…
More information about ABI Research’s report is available from 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.
