Mobiles 'will increasingly take on satnav functions'

Mobile phones are set to assume an increasingly important role in what has come to be known as the 'personal navigation device' market.

According to ABI Research, the market for GPS-enabled handsets will grow strongly in the next five years, rising from around 140 million handsets in 2007 to more than 600 million handset shipments in 2012. Berg Insight more or less concurs, putting the 2012 figure at 560 million units.

However, navigation-capable handsets will complement, rather than replace stand-alone navigation systems, ABI says, adding that phone handset-based navigation 'will not challenge the PND navigation form factor in the near future.' It makes this prediction in spite of the relative success of off-board navigation in the United States, where there are thought to be more than 4 million paying satnav subscribers.

Take-up of GPS-equipped phones will be accelerated by reductions in the price of GPS chips, ABI says. Their wholesale cost, which until recently ranged from $5 to $10, has now fallen to $2 following developments by makers such as CSR and SiRF.

Interestingly, ABI predicts a revival of factory-fitted satnav, which has gradually been ousted by stand-alone systems except in higher-end cars and trucks. It reckons the penetration rates of factory-installed systems in the US and Europe will increase to 30 per cent by 2012, reaching an annual volume of more than 10 million units.

You can read more in two ABI reports, Consumer Navigation Devices and Systems and GPS-Enabled Mobile Devices.