According to news today it looks like 2007 could see double the amount of GPS enabled equipment being sold compared to last year. During the first nine months of 2006 around 12 million GPS devices were sold, but research firm Canalys reckons 28 million or more could be sold this year.
An increase in the amount of AGPS units has also contributed towards this figure. These “Assisted GPS” units reduce the “lock” time taken to search for satellites by using information on your current GSM “cell” to determine which satellites should be visable to your device. Users of the T-Mobile MDA Compact III may have already seen this on their handsets – it’s called “QuickGPS” and works very well indeed.
Experts believe that the rise and rise of GPS-enabled phones will mean an equal rise of location-based services, such as the “buddy finders” which alert you when a friend is in your local area. Other ideas include mobile blogging, gep-tagging photographs, location based advertising, excercise reports and more. One particularly popular solution in the US and Japan is aimed at parents and will track their children location. Even Disney have their own GPS tracked handset!.
Link – BBC News
GPS Phone sales set to explode
January 28, 2007