Hybrid Indoor Location to Dominate Billion Unit Smartphone Market

Apple’s acquisition of WiFiSLAM has brought smartphone indoor location technologies to the fore. With over 1 billion new smartphones forecast to utilize indoor location technologies in 2018, there are still significant opportunities for companies with the right technologies and strategies.

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 best placed to be successful. “We see a significant trend towards hybridization, with Wi-Fi, BLE and sensor fusion vita,” commented 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.”

Practice director Dominique Bonte added, “We are already seeing start-ups pivot out of this space, but there is still huge opportunity for partnerships/acquisitions with major Android handset vendors, carriers and large application developers. 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.

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 70+ research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.