Location based services or LBS use location data to control features like entertainment, health, personal life, indoor object search and so on. These services identify locations of a person or object, personalize weather information, and also provide information about location-based games. Growth in the number of advantages, rapid technological evolution and falling costs of these services are some of the major factors driving the global location based services (LBS) market. Increasing adoption of these services across different industrial verticals is expected to create greater business opportunities for this industry in the years to come. According to the experts, companies in the global industry are expected to involve in major practices of mergers and acquisitions in order to carry on with the existing rate of progress.
Factors Segmenting the LBS Market
In order to understand the basics of the global location based service market, the experts segment it on the basis of the types of products, services, technologies, applications, end-user industrial verticals and geographic regions. Analysis of all these segments provides in-depth information about the latest industry trends of growth, challenges, competition, opportunities and revenue. Following are the details of the sub-segments in the LBS industry:
- Products: Software, hardware and services
- Technologies: Cell identification (Cell-ID), enhanced GPS (E-GPS), assisted GPS (A-GPS), observed time difference of arrival (OTDOA), enhanced observed time difference (E-OTD), hybrid technology and others
- Services: Managed services, consulting, system integration, and other services
- Applications: Business intelligence, analytics, mapping, discovery and infotainment, tracking, emergency support, disaster management, location based games and advertising, augmented reality, leisure and social networking
- End-Users: BFSI, academia, oil and gas, retail, healthcare, media and advertisement, government and defense, transport and logistics, manufacturing and others
- Geography: North America, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa and Europe
Growth Factors and Future Prospects
The global location based service market is strongly driven by three major factors, which include high interest of personalized services based on user preferences, global deployment of 3G and 4G wireless services and availability of cheaper GPS devices. Experts suggest that growth in the number of smartphone users and cheaply available GPS systems will create further growth in demand for the LBS market. According to the latest market research reports, the global industry is set to grow at an anticipated CAGR of over 25% from 2015 to become worth $39.87 billion by the end of the year 2019. As of in 2014, the industry is worth $8.12 billion. Increasing portable PDA based e-commerce services are further expected to drive the growth of the global industry.
Currently, the location based services (LBS) market is driven by North America. However, Asia Pacific and other emerging markets are set to witness impressive growth during the forecasting period.
