Shipments of GPS-enabled mobile phones will generate more than $50 billion in revenues in 2008, rising to $100 billion in 2012, according to a new report from ABI Research. The market for these handsets is expected to grow from around 240 million units in 2008 to more than 550 million handset shipments in 2012.
At present, most current GPS-enabled handsets are CDMA devices, but increasing numbers of GPS-enabled handsets for 3G/WCDMA networks will start to appear in the market from 2008 onwards.
"The ongoing consolidation in the mobile industry -- including Nokia's acquisition of NAVTEQ, Broadcom's acquisition of Global Locate, CSR's acquisition of NordNav Technologies and Cambridge Positioning Systems, and the tussle between TomTom and Garmin to acquire Tele Atlas -- gives a clear indication of the plans and commitment of industry players to address the GPS-enabled handset market," says ABI Research Analyst Shailendra Pandey.
ABI Research believes that the mobile industry has reached the stage where we can expect to see rapid growth in the GPS-enabled handset market. From cost and technology perspectives, chipset manufacturers now have solutions in place that will allow the integration of GPS in handsets at low cost and provide significant improvements in terms of accuracy, time-to-first-fix and reception in indoor environments. On the services side, mobile operators and navigation application developers are coming up with attractive location-based service offerings to entice new consumers.
For more information, check out ABI's GPS-Enabled Mobile Devices or visit www.abiresearch.com.
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