News
70m mobile satnav users in six years
Tim Green Oct 10 2008, 10:50am
There could be 70 million handset navigation users by 2014, says Berg Insight.
The analyst predicts subscribers downloading navigation routes to mobile will grow from 16 million this year, and that revenues from subs and ads are expected to reach €597 million by 2014.
Obviously, the growth will be driven by the embedding of GPS in smartphones, which only began in 2007. Meanwhile the anticipated launch of GPS enabled handsets in the US by AT&T and T-Mobile USA should fuel a market that already has six million active users.
André Malm, telecom analyst, Berg Insight, said: “The mobile industry is now starting to reap the benefits from the introduction of GPS enabled handsets. However, most mobile navigation users only use the service during a free trial period. The key challenge will be to convert these test-users into paying subscribers.”
