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Hybrid Indoor Location to Dominate Billion Unit Smartphone Market

August 15, 2013  - By
Image: GPS World

​Apple’s acquisition of WiFiSLAM has brought smartphone indoor location technologies to the fore. With more than 1 billion new smartphones forecast to use indoor location technologies in 2018, there are still significant opportunities for companies with the right technologies and strategies, according to a report by ABI Research.

In ABI Research’s latest Location Technology report, “Smartphone Indoor Location Technologies,” it has forecast the adoption of different indoor location technologies, and the companies that are best placed to be successful. “We see a significant trend towards hybridization, with Wi-Fi, BLE and sensor fusion vital,” said senior analyst, Patrick Connolly.  “By 2014, hybrid solutions will have already surpassed standalone indoor location technologies on smartphones, with Wi-Fi and sensor fusion hybrid solutions reaching over 900 million units in 2018. Longer term, technologies around optical light, object recognition and LTE-direct are all forecast to offer differentiation.”

“We are already seeing start-ups pivot out of this space, but there is still huge opportunity for partnerships and acquisitions with major Android handset vendors, carriers and large application developers,” said practice director Dominique Bonte. “Clearly Google is developing its own Wi-Fi indoor location solution; however, it may well open up its indoor location framework, enabling the market to expand much more rapidly. For IC vendors, with access to the hardware abstraction layer, indoor location innovation is vital for future socket wins.”

These findings are part of ABI Research’s Location Technologies Research Service, which includes research analyses, market data, insights, and competitive assessments focused on the indoor location market.

1 Comment on "Hybrid Indoor Location to Dominate Billion Unit Smartphone Market"

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  1. Hi GPSWorld/Patrick Connolly,
    Compelling article. The WCA (Wireless Communication Alliance http://WWW.wca.org) is having an event on Indoor Location at the MobileCon 2013 in San Jose. We would be delighted to get your involvement, either as a presenter, or participant. I am organizing the event this year. Please return to me about your thoughts so I can forward an abstract of the event. Many thanks. Regards, Paul McBurney (415) 378 4967