Opportunities abound in growing location-based services market30 April 2010The market for mobile location-based services (LBS) is finally starting to take off in Europe as the remaining obstacles to growth are largely being addressed by manufacturers and developers, recent studies indicate. “LBS is at the start of an impressive growth curve, possibly resulting in countless opportunities for entrepreneurs and a €100bn market,” said Boris Kennes, R&D and Market Monitoring Officer at the European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA).  LBS is at the start of an impressive growth curve, possibly resulting in countless opportunities for entrepreneurs and a €100bn market says Boris Kennes. © Ahmed ElAmin He cited these forecasts in the opening a half-day session on LBS, 4 March at Galileo Application Days in Brussels. He stated that his optimism was driven by four recent changes in the market. First of all, the ability to use a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) is becoming a standard feature in mobile phones. Over three years to 2009, the market grew from eight million shipments of devices with GNSS to 29 million in the EU's 27 Member States, for example. An estimated 38 million GNSS-enabled smartphones are forecast to be shipped in 2010. Secondly, the app stores, pioneered by the Apple iPhone app store, have handed developers a way to quickly distribute their product to a global audience and obtain revenues. Thirdly, consumers and developers are becoming more aware of satnav applications. In the UK, France and Germany five out of the 10 best selling iPhone apps in 2009 were related to navigation or LBS, Kennes said. There are currently about 6,000 location based apps available at Apple's Application store. And finally, while the navigation performance of these devices still has a long way to go, the leading smartphone manufacturers are developing a host of technologies to improve positioning. Some smartphones sport assisted GPS to reduce the time to the first fix. Others features include the use of WiFi and cellular positioning as a back-up to satellite-based navigation, highly sensitive receivers, motion sensors and gyroscopes for tilt, map matching and magnetic compass. Adding up the social benefits“But it is not all about commercial revenues,” Kennes emphasised, referring to the use of LBS for emergency and mobility services. “The social benefits of GNSS to Europeans are estimated to be €160bn over a period of 20 years and save thousands of lives. The studies and research are part of the market monitoring services provided by the GSA in support of the EU's EGNOS and Galileo programmes. The GSA also oversees applications for R&D funding for GNSS projects through the EU's Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7). A total of 47 projects have so far received a total €40m in two calls for applications. A third call for proposals involving €38m in funding is expected at the end of July. In the case of EGNOS, a satellite-based augmentation system, the GSA helps to stimulate the market by acts by co-marketing with key stakeholders, raising market awareness and providing information through the online EGNOS Portal. “We believe that the GNSS market is developing very fast, and is benefiting citizens, businesses and governments alike,” Kennes said. “Galileo and EGNOS are essential to capture full GNSS potential in Europe.” He was followed by Dominique Bonte, ABI Research's Practice Director, Telematics & Navigation, who outlined ongoing developments in the LBS markets. Satellite positioning is expected to pervade all portable devices, from handsets to digital cameras and camcorders, according to the company's research. “We are seeing the emergence of a transparent and integrated location experience,” he said. “There is a shift from dedicated devices and applications to location as an embedded feature. This shift will result in an integrated environment where location experience becomes ubiquitous, seamless and transparent.” Reaching a critical massThe inclusion of GNSS is enabling an ever growing number of location-aware applications for social networking, local area searches, geotagging, location-based marketing and advertising, messaging and micro-blogging. Out of the 2.14 billion devices on the market in 2014, about one billion will be GNSS-enabled, ABI Research estimates.  Rainer Horn says believes that the dynamic mobile applications market provides a huge opportunity for developers. © Ahmed ElAmin “There is a very important evolution lying ahead of us,” he said. “The relevance of EGNOS and Galileo is very clear. More systems will improve coverage, improve the time to first fix and improve reliability.” Laurent De Hauwere, the Managing Partner of Ptolemus Consulting Group, described the LBS sector as one in which companies are trying out different business models in the market. “Central to these business model changes will be the facts that location is becoming connected and connectivity is becoming mobile,” he said. He outlined what he called the “five pillars of location-based services in 2010”. These pillars are connectivity, a service model that is based on more than positioning, partnership, a sustainable business model, and the provision of rich and relevant content. “Location, as such, is not a unique selling proposition,” he said. Rainer Horn, the Managing Partner of SpaceTecCapital Partners, spoke about the market challenges for LBS developers. In particular he noted that the dynamic mobile applications market provides a huge opportunity for developers. However, the challenge is to find the “right” business model, mobile platform, and the kind of added-value content that can be provided. After the presentations, some of the winners of previous European Satellite Navigation Competition described their LBS applications. These included:
Next, some LBS start-ups made “elevator pitches” before a panel of four judges, who made comments on their presentations to investors.
FP7 in actionNext, seven projects funded through the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7) made presentations about their ongoing work in the LBS sector. These included:
Galileo Application Days Galileo Application Days, 3-5 March, kicked off this year’s European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC). Live demonstrations of cutting-edge satellite navigation applications using EGNOS and Galileo were held at the event’s ‘Application Village’. The event was hosted by the European Commission and was organised by the European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA) and the Application Centre for Satellite Navigation in Oberpfaffenhofen (AZO), the managing organisation for ESNC (Galileo Masters). Galileo is scheduled to become operational in 2014. Fully interoperable with the USA’s GPS and Russia's GLONASS systems, it will provide highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning services. EGNOS is Europe’s ‘pre- Galileo' system. It is operational since 2009 and improves the accuracy of the open public service offered by GPS. EDAS is the EGNOS data access system, currently in beta testing. Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you do republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu). More information:
Galileo Application Days |