GPS to see huge market in 2013, reports ABI

The use of GPS in consumer, business and industrial environments such as telematics and asset tracking will continue to grow, while in-car navigation will remain its most important application. According to ABI Research in its report "Global Navigation Satellite Positioning Solutions," the market will expand to over 900 million units by 2013.

Driving this growth are the GPS modernization project and the arrival of additional Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) such as GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou/Compass, which will increase the availability, reliability, and precision of satellite positioning and stimulate the location ecosystem.

"Personal navigation devices for in-car use will be increasingly complemented by converged solutions based on GPS-enabled handsets for pedestrian navigation and location-based services," says ABI Research principal analyst Dominique Bonte. "However, GNSS technologies will have to be combined with other positioning solutions such as A-GPS, Wi-Fi and dead reckoning to address the indoor coverage issue. Dedicated GPS devices will remain the preferred option for specific applications and environments such as outdoors, marine, recreational aviation and tracking of people and animals."

Industrial GPS applications include precision agriculture, machine control, construction, surveying and timing. According to ABI, the use of GPS in military systems will also remain important. Marine, avionics, military and surveying applications require GPS to be complemented by other technologies such as sonar, radio or laser for improved precision or coverage.

Advances in GPS chipset development will enable the integration of GPS technology in all mobile devices at low cost by 2013. This will drive new applications such as automatic geo-tagging of pictures taken with digital cameras. Other innovative applications include road toll systems and tourism. Mobile location-based social networking features will be an important driver for the uptake of GPS devices and applications in the consumer market, added ABI.