130 million mobile LBS users in Europe by 2014

09 June 2009, 11:37am

Jun 9, 2009 - According to a new Berg Insight report, the number of European users of mobile location-based services is predicted to increase at a CAGR of almost 38% between 2008 and 2014, from 20 million users to nearly 130 million.

In terms of the number of users, local search, navigation services and social networking are expected to become the top applications.

"The key enablers for LBS are rapidly falling into place," says senior analyst André Malm. "On-device application stores allow easier access to mobile services for a broader audience at the same time as flat-rate data plans make pricing more transparent."

He pointed out that, in conjunction with more operators opening their location platforms to third parties, location aggregators have started to provide common APIs for accessing location data from multiple operators. This, together with increasing GPS handset sales, will allow more application developers to create location-enabled mobile applications.

Berg Insight estimates that more than 20% of mobile handsets shipped in 2009 will feature GPS, and that the installed base in Europe will exceed 50% of total handsets in 2013.

While many of the most popular services will primarily rely on advertising revenues, revenues may not grow at the same rate as usage because the mobile marketing and advertising ecosystem is highly fragmented and immature. It will take several years to establish a successful model that can reach out to a critical mass of active users.
At the same time, service categories including navigation and tracking can be expected to remain premium services to a large extent also in the future. Malm says that besides monthly subscriptions and per-use fees, service providers will increasingly offer one-time fees, service bundles or device bundles to match consumer expectations.



The new Mobile Location-Based Services is the fourth consecutive yearly report from Berg Insight analysing the latest developments on the European LBS market.

This report will allow you to:

Understand the opportunities and challenges for mobile location-based services in Europe.

Comprehend how location technologies affect the user experience of LBS.

Identify key players on the European mobile LBS market.

Predict future business opportunities for mobile industry players in LBS.

Profit from valuable insights about the most successful business and technology propositions on the market.

Learn about the mobile LBS strategies of leading telecom operator groups.

Research team: André Malm and Johan Fagerberg
Formats: Paper copy or electronic PDF licenses
Publication date: June 9, 2009
Download brochure from the link below.
Pages: 170

Please find on the link below more detailed information (brochure and table of contents) about our new report ”Mobile Location-Based Services – 4th Edition”. The report can be purchased in our online report shop.

Berg Insight

Download the report brochure

Berg Insight online shop for this report

Geo: International