Gothenburg, Sweden 15th July 2005: Revenues from mobile location-based services (LBS) in the European market will grow by 153 percent during 2005 to reach € 274 million, according to a new report from the research firm Berg Insight.

For the coming five years, the average annual growth rate is expected to be 83 percent. Johan Fagerberg, senior analyst at Berg Insight, explains why the market now is finally taking off. “This year we have begun to see the expected shift in revenues from voice to non-voice services in the mobile industry. Increasingly user friendly handsets paired with a more mature approach to content services create the right conditions for launching new offerings on the market”.

Johan points out navigation as an example of an attractive new mobile service that takes advantage of positioning technology. Operators such as Vodafone and TeliaSonera have recently introduced products which turn mobile phones into GPS navigators. Unlike other GPS navigation products they feature dynamic map information that is downloaded directly from the wireless network. That enables users to view anything from the latest traffic updates to hotels and restaurants on the handset display.

The corporate market is also very important for LBS, says Johan. A growing number of European businesses use asset, fleet and workforce management solutions in their daily operations. By tracking the position of employees, vehicles or other movable assets using mobile phones, managers can improve efficiency as well as maintain a higher level of security. There have already been several cases where tracking of mobile phones have lead to the recovery of valuable cargo from stolen vehicles.

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