HERE is the strongest player in the booming location business

A new, annual report from research consultancy Strategy Analytics covers the progress of maps and location-based services from all the major players in the industry.

We are delighted to discover that HERE wins a number of plaudits from the researchers.

In ‘Future Growth Opportunities for Mobile Location Services‘,  Strategy Analytics observes a series of key trends that are pushing the acceleration and value of location services:

More people than ever have access to a GPS device of some kind. This is largely driven by a growth in the low-end smartphone segment, and an improvement in the capabilities of these phones: 70 per cent of these lower-end devices now include GPS and WiFi, the report says.

Nitesh Patel, Director of Wireless Media Strategies at Strategy Analytics, told HERE 360: “Location-based services are one of the core services which underpin the digital revolution. Wherever you are in the world, you need to know how to get there, and how to connect with people and businesses nearby you. More than ever consumers are relying on location based services to get answers to those questions”.

A second factor driving growth is the mobile advertising business, already worth $40bn a year. Now advertisers are looking to location services to improve efficiency, testing the power of using people’s location to determine which ads they see, or to understand more about their lives.

The business opportunities around indoor location are also growing as venue owners and stores start to see the commercial value of being able to provide and customise maps of their locations. However, the report concedes that it’s still early days when it comes to realising the potential of this technology.

The rise of wearable devices is predicted to continue, and users will get the best out of these when they carry rich location-based services to provide contextual information.

Putting the car in your pocket

In the automotive sector, the report notes the importance to car-makers of creating their own mobile phone apps to build customer engagement.

It says that in their planned acquisition of HERE, BMW, Audi and Daimler have gained access to a platform for creating “a full door-to-door navigation experience” throughHERE Auto apps not only in the car, but on the desktop and owner’s smartphones.

Leading the pack

Assessing the relative strength of different maps and location suppliers, HERE wins out against the competition in most measurements, according to Strategy Analytics.

HERE is awarded the report’s highest rating – and current industry leadership – in map and navigation coverage, indoor location, platform reach (the number of different devices and operating systems we cover), visualisation, offline use and in-vehicle connectivity.

[VIA]