OYSTER BAY, N.Y.-Location-based services (LBS) are poised for a comeback, according to market research from ABI Research.
Bolstered by E911 legislation in Europe and North America and commercial success in Asia, ABI believes LBS services may garner more than $3.6 billion in revenue by the end of the decade. So far, the firm said, adoption of LBS has been stalled by technical challenges in locating cell-phone callers, but new solutions that combine global positioning system data with cellular infrastructure data are helping.
ABI expects enterprise services for tracking employees and assets will make up the largest segment of the LBS market, while navigation, weather and friend/child tracking will be adopted by consumers. In addition, ABI expects car-based telematics revenues to outpace those for handset-based services, despite fewer users. ABI expects global telematics revenue to exceed $5 billion by 2009.
“While carrier deployments are escalating globally, the real money is in the services,” said Edward Rerisi of ABI. “LBS enables a carrier to raise their ARPU by offering value-added location services that will also fuel demand for higher-priced data services. If deployed successfully, it can give a significant boost to the top line.”
