Market awareness of location-based services is driving a high adoption rate for applications on mobile devices. Of the $118 million in revenue that downloadable mobile applications such as LBS, weather applications, chat/community, and personal organization tools generated during Q2 2007, LBS represented 51 percent.
Networks In Motion (NIM), an LBS navigation publisher for products including Verizon Wireless' VZ Navigator, secured a 27 percent share of carrier revenue from mobile applications and leads all mobile application publishers. Unlike buying an "off-board" navigation system like a Garmin or TomTom, "leasing" your navigation system from a carrier that uses a solution from NIM or others compares quite favorably in cost. In addition, the smaller form factor for a phone versus a wider screen navigation device provides some additional convenience. Editor-in-chief Joe Francica spoke with Steven Andler, Director of Marketing for NIM to get his take on why LBS applications are attracting such a large percentage of the growth in downloadable mobile applications. The podcast is 14:05 and was recorded on October 18, 2007.
[podcast: "LBS_NIM-10-18-07.mp3"]
...Or,
listen here.