Juniper Research predicts that mobile local search will be used by almost 1.5 billion people by 2014.
A growing number of users access the mobile Internet every day and a large number of these users also make purchases via their mobiles. At the same time, a growing number of smartphones and feature phones now ship with integrated GPS receivers.
Continued growth in usage of both the mobile Web and mobile geo-positioning systems will definitely result in an increasing use of the combination of these services in the form of mobile local search.
When smartphones were first introduced, the cost of the handset and other technological accompaniments such as the user interface, processors and GPS was extremely high. Thus, only a few people could afford to use these services.
Now, however, the cost of these products and services has dropped considerably, making it more affordable for consumers in general to use such services. These features have also become more user friendly, further encouraging buyers to make use of them.
Many location-based services and location-enabled apps are also being developed to exploit the boom in mobile social networking. Mobile apps that tie-in social networking with geo-location awareness are growing in popularity with phenomenal speed.
Juniper’s study predicts that browser-based services will continue to dominate local search, but applications from app stores will also hold a large share of the information services market.
The total revenues from all mobile location-based services is predicted to be in the range of $12.7 billion by 2014. Advertising will account for a large portion of this revenue, but it may not be the primary source of revenue.
Juniper Research has arrived at these findings based on interviews, case studies and analysis of information available from the leading organisations in the mobile industry.
