Set to break one billion downloads in 2016, but not much activity before then
The indoor location app market is not set to do much before 2016, but that year it will rocket to reach one billion downloads, stated research firm ABI.
While there will not be an immediate surge in indoor location-enabled handsets and applications, the ecosystem necessary to drive mass adoption of indoor location applications will be in place by 2016, ABI said.
An ABI Research report shows that the future adoption of a variety of indoor location and proximity technologies and hybrids will work across a range of different application categories, such as retail, navigation, enterprise, personal tracking and social, while also enhancing services such as advertising, ambient intelligence, augmented reality, photography, and local search.
However, even at this early stage, it is clear that indoor location will play a major part in the future of mobile said senior analyst at ABI Research, Patrick Connolly. 'The market is still very nascent with a number of major handset vendors yet to decide on what technologies they will adopt. In particular, any decision from Google will have huge repercussions, depending on whether it opens up the Android platform or not,' he commented.
Continuing, Connolly said: 'There are also issues around indoor maps, data ownership, and interoperability across technologies, buildings, and OS platforms. By 2016, the ecosystem will have evolved sufficiently that ABI Research is forecasting strong adoption of indoor location applications, catalyzed by the increasing availability of in-store applications and services.'
Practice director Dominique Bonte added: 'As smartphones proliferate, and privacy barriers come down, location will become increasingly used to enhance existing and new services. Indoor, ubiquitous location is a natural extension of this inevitable trend.'
