During the last year, North America generated 81% of the world’s Location Based Services (LBS) revenue. In 2013, however, that percentage will be just 32% — Europe’s combined LBS revenues will jump from just 5% to 31%, while the Asia-Pacific region will see a rise from a 2007 share of 11% to 27%.
LBS’s slow uptake outside North America has had everything to do with the fact that unlike the CDMA phones so prevalent there, which have utilized GPS to comply with the United States’ E911 regulatory mandate, the GSM handsets owned by most users in Europe and Asia have not generally offered native GPS support. However with the broader proliferation of GPS-enabled GSM handsets in those other regions, and with the quickening rollout of 3G services worldwide, the opportunities for LBS service offerings will grow quickly.
According to ABI Research principal analyst Dominique Bonte, “Since most LBS application developers sell to the world, and most of their products are platform-agnostic, the cost per service for users is likely to be similar in all regions.” He also noted that navigation service can cost as much as $9.99/month, friend-finder services might only be $2.99. “On that basis, as well as via cultural preferences, particular services will be popular to differing degrees in different regions. That can affect the total revenue to be generated from a particular region,” he added.
ABI Research’s recent report, “Mobile Location-Based Services” explores the market for high-accuracy LBS, focusing on the applications side of the industry… More information is available on their website.