A recent report by ABI Research reveals that the GPS-enabled health and fitness market continues to grow strongly with application downloads expected to break the 100m mark in 2012 .Revenues currently remain low as companies move to a freemium model to build presence, but it is a sector that has huge potential, with fitness device partnerships expected in 2013. The report found that, in the family tracking market, companies like life360 and Sprint have led the way, with total downloads in 2012 expected to reach 37 million. ABI Research also forecasts strong revenue growth in the enterprise sector, which is undergoing a second wave of growth, moving beyond fleet management.
According to Senior analyst Patrick Connolly, “The advertising side of the LBS business remains a relatively small but growing part of overall revenues in 2012. The “search and discovery” vertical is gathering significant interest with approximately 70% of Yelp’s 2011 revenue coming from local advertising, 78 million monthly active users, and partnerships with Apple and Microsoft. However, attrition continues in this space with Poynt (previously targeting 40m users by the end of 2012) filing for bankruptcy.”
Practice director, Dominique Bonte said, “In the carrier navigation space, there is an increasing need to look at new applications, business models, and emerging regions as illustrated by the big names players; TeleNav, TCS, and Telmap. In Europe, where roaming is still a major issue for off-board solutions, companies like Appello have indicated that carriers still see navigation as a key feature for high-end users.”
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