Mark Bridge writes:

There's been a bit of a location-based theme in the mobile industry this week.

Hardly surprising, with a new report from Pyramid Research saying location-based advertising is becoming increasingly popular – and NAVTEQ revealing that most consumers are happy receiving promotional offers in exchange for free location-related content.

A new research report from Berg Insight forecasts that the number of tracking devices and wireless alarm systems monitored via mobile networks by alarm receiving centres will grow at the equivalent of 41% per year within Europe, from 7 million in 2010 to 39.2 million by the end of 2015.

The number of wireless machine-to-machine modules shipped for security applications will grow at an even higher rate, increasing from last year's figure of 2.4 million wireless M2M modules to 21.4 million in 2015.

Glympse, which launched its location-sharing app as a public beta two years ago, says it's just passed 1 million users and has also raised $7.5 million in funding.

Glympse lets users share their location for a specified period, allowing friends to see where they are or to follow real-time movements.

A new report from Pyramid Research says location-based advertising is becoming increasingly popular.

In 2008, the location-based advertising market was worth just $86 million worldwide, representing 10% of all mobile advertising. Last year, it had increased to $588 million - 18.5% of all mobile advertising - and by 2015 it's expected to reach $6.2 billion (£3.8 billion).

Nokia has appointed Michael Halbherr, who's recently been running the product unit in Nokia's Services business, to the post of executive vice president. As well as being a member of the Nokia Leadership Team he'll now lead a new Nokia Location & Commerce business.

The Location & Commerce business will create new 'social location' products and services while continuing to serve customers of Nokia's NAVTEQ subsidiary.