Well mapped: our $700m GPS love affair
location based services
portable navigation devices
AUSTRALIA'S obsession with global positioning software continues to grow, but it may never have happened without a Cold War tragedy.
Australian consumers now spend $700 million annually on GPS, up from less than $100 million five years ago.
The boom is due mostly to the huge demand for portable navigation devices, which now sell for about $500.
In 2002, about 10,000 portable devices were sold. It is estimated that this year 650,000 will be sold and next year more than a million.
The technology, developed by the US military in the 1970s, was never intended for civilian use, but after a Soviet fighter aircraft shot down an off-course commercial airliner in 1983, then US president Ronald Reagan said it should be freely available.
Adrian Tout, national sales manager for whereis.com, which provides digital maps for 95 per cent of the hardware sold in Australia, says soaring demand has led the average price for a portable device to fall to $500 from $1500 a few years ago. And he says what you get is a product "1000 times better", with features including touch-screen and 3D maps.
"It has become affordable, easier to use and a lot more available. Research we have done shows that if people can take control, they will. There's also the security and comfort factor that GPS provides," he says.
GPS uses satellites orbiting the Earth to pinpoint locations. The satellites were launched by the US military, but after Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down when it entered Soviet air space, killing all 269 people on board, GPS experts began working on delivering it to the masses.
The system was fully operational by 1995, and business was quick to see its potential.
In 1997, BMW brought the first consumer GPS technology to Australia in its cars.
About 70,000 in-car GPS units are now sold each year in Australia and add between $2500 and $7000 to the cost of a car.
In 2000, the first portable devices were made commercially available in Australia, with only highway and city maps available.
US-based Garmin, the market leader in portable devices in Australia, now spends nearly $1 billion annually on research and development. "Now that there's a market, these companies are happy to make the investment," Mr Tout says.
But he believes the biggest leap forward for GPS technology will come in the form of mobile phones. This year, the first three phones with GPS were released in Australia and more than 50,000 will have been sold by the end of the year.
In the next few months, five more models will become available and, says Mr Tout, they signal the end of the revolution and the establishment of a new norm in navigating. "Soon GPS will become truly ubiquitous — this is just the start. Within five years, everyone will have some sort of GPS device."
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