2.8 Billion Mobile GPS Devices in Four Years!

Parks Associates predicts GPS-integrated Mobile Devices to Exceed 830 Million Units Globally by 2012

Worldwide shipments of GPS-integrated mobile devices will grow at an annualized rate of nearly 40% over the next five years, reaching 834 million units in 2012, according to Parks Associates' new report: "GPS: A Path to New Applications on Mobile Devices".

The report looks at a variety of mobile devices, including personal navigation devices (PNDs), mobile handsets and smartphones, portable media players, and personal digital assistants (PDAs). “Mobile handsets and smartphones will constitute the majority of shipments up to 2012, but PNDs will remain the most widely used and preferred navigation choice in the next three years,” said Harry Wang, senior analyst, Parks Associates.

"GPS will come to your mobile handset as a standard feature, but mobile carriers are still a couple of years away from turning GPS into a money-making, mass-market feature," Wang added. “Currently, consumers prefer PNDs thanks to the combination of a bigger screen, more versatile functions, and growing affordability”.

"The use of navigational services on mobile phones will lag behind adoption of PNDs and GPS-integrated handsets in the near term, [but] carriers can boost consumer interest and usage by developing flexible and innovative services and revenue models."

Mommy, I want an Android!

PND increasingly loosing their future to Smartphones

Just assume that all mobiles being sold in the US currently have GPS buildt-in... and that adverstment ain't going to pay the bills... or "Mommy, the screens too small!!! I want an Android!"

SAN FRANCISCO — The rising availability of connected portable navigation devices (PNDs) and continued growth of location-based services were big topics at the GPS-Wireless 2008 conference here.

To make a point about where the market has gone in 10 years, Marc Prioleau, deCarta's vice president of marketing, held up a bulky, mid-1990s-era PCMCIA card with integrated GPS. "At Trimble, we sold about 10 of these. Now, companies like Nokia have GPS integrated into 35 million devices," he said.

Services available on the mobile phone, such as navigation, will continue to be one of the market drivers for LBS, said Doug MacMillan, Nokia director of technology insight and promotion. "It's going to be clearly about services. Right now, we have about 40 percent market share," he said. "In North America, there will be 85 percent of phones [with navigation capability]. That number is about 50 percent in Europe and 10-15 percent in Asia."

The sale of advertising around traffic information has been a $300 million-a-year business for Westwood One, said Bill Martin, the company's senior vice president for interactive traffic services. "When we expand the model into the telematics space, the automobile is one our biggest single [markets]," he said. "What doesn't help the market is some of the interfaces that most drivers see. When selecting a specific route, seeing an icon on a 2.1-inch screen isn't the best option, as it is not actionable. The interface has to allow the driver to make a decision."

My conclusion... Google's future will be in your hand with a screen just big enough...

Smartphone and PDN Statistics

11% of Americans have more than 10,000 digital photos

Fully 11% of respondents to a Tabblo survey indicated they have more than 10,000 digital photos. The largest group of survey respondents (27%) has between 1,001 and 5,000 digital photos. If this data is extrapolated to the general public, it translates into Americans having almost 500 bln digital photos. Additionally, when asked how they were going to photograph the holiday and New Year's parties they planned to attend, point and shoot cameras remain the preferred choice, with 55% of survey respondents indicating they planned to use them. Digital SLRs were a popular second choice, with 37% of respondents indicating they planned to use them to capture holiday memories. Despite the dramatic growth in the number of camera phones, only 3% of respondents indicated they planned to use them to take pictures at upcoming parties,

Global Shipments of Smart Phones

Global shipments of all smart mobile devices rose 30% YTY in Q4 2006 to hit 22 mln. 18 mln were smart phones, 2.5 mln wireless handhelds and 1.5 mln handhelds. Total smart mobile device shipments for 2006 were 77 mln, of which 64 mln were smart phones. Nokia remains market leader in Q4, accounting for 50% of all shipments. RIM returns to second place, with device shipments rising 54% YTY in the quarter. Sony Ericsson gets back into top five for the first time since early 2004. Combined shipments of smart phones and wireless handhelds ("converged devices") were up 42%. But handheld shipments fell 41% compared to Q4 2005.

1.5 mln portable navigation units shipped in the US in Q4 2006

1.5 mln portable navigation devices (PNDs) shipped in the US in the Q4 2006. Overall PND shipments for the year hit 2.9 mln units, up 269% on 2005. Garmin was market leader in 2006 with 50% share, ahead of Magellan and TomTom. The US represented 23% of the global market in the quarter, up from just 15% a year earlier.

630 mln devices shipped in 2006 supported MPEG

MPEG already has conquered the PC and consumer electronics worlds, with the video-compression technology integrated into 630 mln devices shipped in 2006 alone. However, the technology is just getting warmed up, as the rise of the MPEG-4 standard spurs its spread to mobile phones and expands its influence on the Internet, according to iSuppli Corp. The number of MPEG-4 (H.264/AVC/MPEG4) codecs in mobile handsets will rise to 509 mln units by 2010, expanding at CAGR of 206% from a mere 1.9 mln units in 2005. The total market for handset video codecs is set to grow to 1.9 bln units by 2010, rising at a 13.6% CAGR from 836.5 mln units in 2005.