Revenue from mobile location-based services in Europe is forecast to grow from €325 million last year to €825 million (£707 million) in 2017, representing a compound annual growth rate of 20.5%. That’s according to a new report from Berg Insight, which also expects the North American location-based service market to grow from $835 million in 2012 to $1,295 million (£829 million) in 2017.
At the moment, Berg Insight estimates that 40% of all European mobile subscribers and 50% of North American subscribers regularly use a location-enhanced application. Local search, social networking and navigation services are the categories with the largest number of active users.
André Malm, Senior Analyst at Berg Insight, said “Smartphones is the most important enabler for LBS [location-based services] adoption in general. The installed base of smartphones in Europe has now reached 45% of total handsets and already surpassed 55% in North America.”
[Report brochure (pdf)]