25% of WCDMA Handsets to Include GPS by the End of 2008

According to a new study performed by ABI Research, about 25% of WCDMA handsets will include GPS by the end of 2008.

Principal analyst Alan Varghese identifies four important reasons for this: "The first factor inducing vendors to include GPS is regulatory, that is, the mandates for emergency calling in the various regions. The second is competition: the CDMA carriers who have had GPS integrated in their handsets since 2002 have been turning on Location Based Services over the past year. A third is economic: carriers continue to look for ways to increase data average revenue per user and recoup some of their high licensing costs for 3G spectrum. Finally, there is consumers' need for portable navigation and other applications driven by location awareness capabilities in the network."

All these factors, along with the increased accuracy required nowadays and the fact that current network-based positioning technologies do not work as well for 3G and WCDMA cellular standards, are pushing GPS integrated circuits (IC) into the handset. ABI Research sees 2007 as the year IC integration for the handset manufacturers will take place, and estimates that by the end of 2008, a quarter of all 3G handsets will have GPS ICs included, and the average selling price of the chipset will have dropped to $2.70.

"SiRF has been the leader in the GPS IC space for the last several years," notes Varghese, "but in the mobile phone segment, Atmel/u-blox, Global Locate, GloNav, Nemerix, Texas Instruments, and u-Nav will soon be nipping at their heels."