14 DAY TRIAL // GPS-enabled mobile phones are growing more and more popular in Europe, according to a recently conducted study.
And it doesn't take much to figure that out. In the U.S. and Asia millions of mobile users are familiar with the technology implemented in mobile phones.
Moreover, due to the early adoption of this technology, in Japan there's a wide variety of GPS-enabled handsets and most users actually own a GPS-enabled mobile phone. In Europe, on the other hand, there are few handsets of this type, and it is about time for the technology to become available there as well.
"GPS has been in the domain of the early adopters to date, but in 2007 it will come to the masses," said Marcus Dacombe, head of product marketing at handset manufacturer Nokia.
Nokia has already introduced a GPS-enabled phone, the N95 which is highly anticipated by the public and is to be available in the first quarter of 2007.
In 1999, the Federal Communications Commission pushed through an act that requires all handsets to incorporate the technology in order for emergency services to pinpoint the exact location of a mobile phone caller. For most people in the U.S. GPS remained a passive technology that was only useful in times of emergency.
Europe, on the other hand, was never very familiar with GPS-enabled mobile phones, and because Europe's networks run on GSM while in US and Japan a mobile standard known as CDMA is used, mobile phones developed in the US and Japan could not be rolled out across Europe.
"Many of those barriers that did exist have been addressed," he said. "We have seen a lot of progress in the last year."
According to IMS Research, the number of GPS-enabled mobile phones in Europe is expected to record a significant growth, from around three million last year to close to 70 million in 2010, while globally the figure will be close to 300 million.