Wednesday, May 9, 2007

GPS - The new selling point for mobile phones

A couple of interesting articles floated my way whilst I was on my break. The first was an article by Andrew Kramer of the Herald Tribune posted on the 3rd April 2007. In the article Andrew outlines the current market size and growth of the GPS industry "The global market for GPS devices hit $15 billion in 2006...... and is expanding at a rate of 25 to 30 percent annually".

Next an article which I read earlier this year in itworld where it states that Cambridge Silicon Radio in the UK will be integrating both a GPS receiver and Bluetooth transceiver into the same chip. The article also states that they expect GPS receivers to be driven down the sub $1 price point.

What does all this say to you?

To me it loudly shouts that we are in for a quicker mass market penetration of GPS into our mobile devices than earlier thought. This price point coupled with a consolidation of chips allowing more bang for the same footprint is a good thing for mobile phone manufacturers. It allows increased functionality without increasing bulk and only potentially slightly increasing power consumption.

Finally, with camera's these days no longer differentiaing the product mobile phones as they did in the past, the question has to be posed - Is GPS the new selling point for mobile phones?

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