Abstract
What are the latest developments on the European LBS market? Berg Insight
forecasts that LBS revenues will grow by 50 percent annually. In 2010, about
18 million users will subscribe to location billing plans.
This 150 page strategic report gives a complete overview of 24 European
markets and in-depth case studies of the LBS strategies of seven leading
mobile operators. Gain detailed insights about the complete LBS value chain
spanning from technology vendors, solution vendors and mobile operators to
content providers, service providers and application developers.
Executive summary
A few years ago, most observers believed usage of mobile location services in
Europe would increase rapidly, but this has not happened yet. In 2005, about 5
years since launch, revenues from mobile location-based services (LBS)
amounted to roughly € 144 million. However, a few location enabled
services already show much promise in some European countries: handset based
navigation and location-based billing of voice calls and mobile data.
Several important drivers can finally bring about a breakthrough for LBS in
general. Mobile network operators increasingly seek new ways of maintaining
ARPU as the price for voice calls decline due to increased competition and
regulation and LBS can definitely contribute to new revenues. EU E112
regulations require location of emergency callers and has prompted operators
to install positioning technology in their networks. Although there is no
minimum positioning accuracy requirement yet, all operators have to provide
basic location information, typically Cell-ID based. The evolution of maturing
business models also make more LBS possible for various customer needs.
Finally, maturing technologies, especially handset performance, enables
dramatically improved customer experience of the services.
Berg Insight estimates that in 2010, revenues from location-based services
will reach € 622 million and account for 1.8 percent of the non-voice
services. Location based billing of data and voice calls is not included in
this figure and adds an additional potential. Although location-based billing
of voice calls may not be introduced in all European countries due to specific
market characteristics, location-based billing of data transfer can be
launched on a wider scale in order to effectively compete with fixed-line
services as 3G networks are upgraded with increased bandwidth.
Until now, some of the foremost reasons for the slow service uptake of
location-based services have been lack of performance and low customer
awareness. Services have simply been too slow and complicated to use, or have
provided little cost benefit compared to alternatives. Operators have
generally performed little marketing of location-based services and many
services are hard to find even if the customer has a general awareness of
their existence. Nevertheless, operators are now increasingly integrating
services with their portals, which increase visibility.
Since mobile operators have been busy deploying other services, the
prioritization of location-based services has largely been put on hold so far.
Location is today regarded as a service enabler rather than a set of services
in its own right. While some location-based services are dependent on high
accuracy positions(e.g. navigation services) others such as information
services are perfectly feasible using only low accuracy Cell-ID positioning.
Many low accuracy technologies are still appealing because they are handset
independent, allowing positioning of all handsets which of course increases
the addressable market size.
In some markets, operators provide location feeds to aggregators or directly
to third party application developers. This practice is very likely to become
more widespread since new market opportunities are created once application
developers can reach larger end-user markets more cost effectively. Both
mass-market applications and niche applications can be developed when access
to location data for all subscribers in all networks become available. Over 40
percent of LBS revenues come today from third party services for business
customers, such as tracking and fleet management solutions. Although revenues
from tracking services for the consumer market are likely to increase
substantially in the coming years, the business segment will account for the
majority of revenues from tracking services.
Network operators can today choose from hosted solutions ranging from basic
positioning platforms to complete solutions with applications and content.
Thus, even small operators in countries with few subscribers, can launch
services to increase the return from necessary investments to comply with E112
regulation.
Nevertheless, there are still issues to be resolved before the full potential
of location-based services can be unleashed. Location roaming needs to be
possible before users can get access to services when travelling abroad. There
are several possibilities to make location roaming work, notably middleware
roaming and SUPL based solutions. Standardisation in this area is ongoing and
in a few years time most issues are likely to be resolved.
Highlights from the report
- Overview of LBS offerings, market strategies and equipment in 24 European
markets.
- Case studies of the LBS strategies of 7 leading mobile operators.
- Complete update on location-based regulatory and standards in Europe.
- Update on the latest developments of location technologies.
- Revenue forecasts for the European market by segment until 2010.
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