Alternative Location Market to Reach $8 Billion, Indoor to Follow

​Precision indoor location is stealing the headlines, yet wide-area alternative/hybrid location is where the money is today.

GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular location technologies will each be installed on over one billion devices in 2017, with direct revenues forecast to break the $8 billion mark.

Senior analyst Patrick Connolly says, “Increasingly, tablet, camera, and portable gaming vendors are using location to differentiate and support additional services and revenue models. Others, like the femtocell market, are driven by mandates. To illustrate the potential, the non-cellular handset market is set to reach over one billion devices by 2017.”

“Ultimately the volumes are in cellular handsets where hybrids of GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, MEMs, NFC, etc. will provide increasing levels of accuracy and ubiquity indoors and out, creating the perfect platform for LBS, location analytics, and hyperlocal advertising. This will place significant control in the hands of carriers and handset vendors and represents both opportunity and competition to the precision indoor location market. Already, leading companies are putting in place the ecosystem to converge the alternative and precision indoor markets.”

Practice director Dominique Bonte says, “The precision indoor market is almost a separate entity in itself, with over 30 companies offering a variety of different technologies. By working directly with retailers, these technologies will empower them to own their own maps, data, and advertising, enabling them to own the customer and compete with Google, etc.”

ABI Research’s report, “Alternative Positioning Technologies,” considers the penetration of over seven alternative location technologies and how they can be combined to meet the needs of each market. It will also look at how the lines between wide-area and precision indoor location will blur into a ubiquitous location in all environments.

It is part of ABI Research’s Location Platforms and Enablers Research Service.

ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of trends in global connectivity and other emerging technologies. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research’s worldwide team of experts advises thousands of decision makers through 40+ research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.