LOCATION BASED SERVICES; Telephia have made the obvious link between GPS availability and LBS uptake in their second quarter report on mobile applications published this week which states that 51 percent of all spending on mobile applications is spent on LBS. This is just one of a raft of stats on the location market and is mainly down to the high price users are willing to pay for mobile navigation services. The average monthly spend on LBS in the U.S. market is $9.23, more than $4 higher than then nearest mobile application challenger, mobile music which weighed in at $4.99. This premium for location can also be attributed to a premium for context.
However, application download rates are only tipping 5 percent as opposed to the 7 - 13 percent achieved by other downloadable content like mobile games. “Many consumers may not realize the utility of a navigation application on their mobile phone until they use it,” said David Gill, Director of Mobile Media, Telephia. “However, Nokia’s bid to buy NAVTEQ for $8.1 billion is a very positive sign for the market and validates the strength and potential of LBS.”
The challenge for the LBS industry is one that in part can be solved by GPS enabled handsets - there are now 130 million of these in the U.S. market alone. As this number increases, application providers must weave location, context, and content personalisation into the very fabric of their most popular mobile services.