14 DAY TRIAL // According to a report recently published by ABI Research, the number of handsets featuring GPS support will continue to rise this year, given the fact that smartphones see more and more traction from consumers, while the location-based service area is getting crowded. According to the report, the number of phones with GPS is expected to grow over 240 million units in 2009, which would mark a 6.4 percent increase from last year.
“As the quality of positioning technology in handsets improves and the cost of including it declines, GPS location technology will approach the status of a standard device feature,” said senior analyst George Perros in a statement. “We are approaching the point where location awareness will be synonymous with smart devices, a point where personal navigation, social spatial knowledge, and location-specific contextual information will be assumed handset capabilities.”
On the other hand, not all areas of the mobile phone market will see the same growth as the GPS-enabled handsets. The economic downturn has been forecast to affect the phone industry as well, and the overall mobile phone market is expected to shrink about 4 to 8 percent.
Devices like Apple's iPhone 3G, Google's T-Mobile G1, Research In Motion's BlackBerry Bold and Storm, Palm's Pre, and Nokia's N Series, all considered high-end handsets, sport GPS capabilities. The previsions point towards similar smartphones in the future as well. According to the ABI Research report, smartphones with GPS will increase in number by 19 percent through 2014.
The applications and services that are based on a user's location will also prove helpful to the announced growth, while the market of said apps should rise to a $13.3 billion business by 2013. One of the mobile operating systems that could appeal most to users is expected to be Google's Android, as it offers developers more ways to access the location functionality than rival platforms would do.