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Finding Location Based Services |
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With GPS available on more new mobile devices, consumer demand for location-based services (LBS) such as navigation is growing, according to Telephia. Navigation represents 51% of the $118 million in revenue that downloadable mobile applications (such as LBS, weather applications, chat/community, and personal organization tools) generated during Q2 2007.
While location-based services deliver highly personalized offerings such as friend-finding and other location-aware features, navigation represents the lion's share of revenue. Moreover, favorable carrier deck placement for LBS applications and the bundling of navigation services with data packages have contributed to record high downloads.
* Approximately 13 million mobile consumers downloaded a mobile application on their phone.
* There are approximately 130 million GPS-capable handsets in the U.S. alone, and growing
* Networks In Motion (NIM)—an LBS navigation publisher for products including Verizon Wireless' VZ Navigator—secured a 27% share of carrier revenue from mobile applications and leads all mobile application publishers. Telenav Mobile followed with a 15% share of carrier revenue and is another LBS navigation publisher.
LBS applications command a healthy price premium compared to other downloadable mobile applications. The average price per month for an LBS application is $9.23, as compared to a range of $3.82-$5.41 for weather applications, sports, wallpapers/pictures, etc.. The selling price for LBS applications is roughly 180% of industry average. However, overall consumer penetration for mobile applications hovers around five percent, as compared to penetration rates of 7%-13% for other downloadable content like games, ringtones and premium SMS.
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