Friday, September 15, 2006

Mobile LBS revenues will reach € 622 million in Europe by 2010

Berg: Revenues from mobile location-based services (LBS) in the European market will grow by 34 percent annually to reach € 622 million in 2010, . The market is picking up speed through successful launches of mobile personal navigation services and location based billing plans in several European countries. Nokia’s recent acquisition of Gate5 is an evident example of the importance mobile industry players attach to navigation. We expect GPS-enabled handsets with preinstalled navigation software to become available from the leading brands on the European market very soon.Navigation will account for 48 percent of mobile LBS revenues in 2010. The popularity of location based billing plans in Germany. Over one third of O2’s customers in Germany have opted for the Genion service, which offers a discount tariff at their home location. Vodafone and T-Mobile have followed and attracted 1 million and 700,000 customers respectively in a short time. Through location based tariffs the users can receive discounts on both voice calls and mobile broadband data traffic at home and pay regular charges elsewhere. Berg Insight estimates that 18 million mobile users will subscribe to location based billing plans by 2010. location-based services (LBS) in the European market Publ 20060915