According to
a new report from the telecom research firm Berg Insight, more
than 100 million mobile subscribers in Europe will use
location-based services (LBS) by 2012.
Mapping, navigation and search are believed to become the top
applications, followed by social networking and tracking. Berg
stated that all the pieces required to set up a successful LBS
infrastructure are now in place.
Commented André Malm, telecom analyst, Berg Insight, “GPS is
about to become a standard feature in mass-market handsets which
are highly advanced and support third party applications. Many will
try and a few players will most likely succeed in creating
location-enabled mobile applications that will have the same impact
on the mobile industry as MySpace and Facebook had on the
Internet.”
The analyst warned though that high adoption rates will however
not immediately translate into high revenues. The mobile
advertising eco-system is still undeveloped and needs many more
years to become mature. LBS providers, Berg suggested, are going to
have to depend on advertising sales in the same way as other online
players.
“First there must be a critical mass of active users to work
with, then someone must create a successful model for reaching out
to these individuals via their handsets and after that the mobile
media must be embraced by the top spenders in the advertising
industry”, added André.