Report: More Than 550 Million GPS Handsets To Ship By 2012

By W. David GardnerInformationWeek

Dominique Bonte, principal analyst at ABI Research, noted that mobile phone service providers are helping drive GPS handset sales by including community and social networking functionality in their handheld devices. Also helping drive the GPS phenomenon are the use of geo-tagged pictures and the sharing of points of interest.

"While most CDMA handsets are already GPS-enabled and GPS is set to become a standard feature in GSM smartphones," Bonte said in a statement, "GSM feature phones are next on the agenda to be equipped with GPS technology. GPS chipset vendors increasingly target handsets, looking for new markets, and are spurred on by the recent dramatic growth of personal navigation devices."

However, the market research firm cited a growing problem: the cost, power consumption, and footprint of GPS chipsets will have to be reduced as GPS increasingly penetrates low-cost phones. Bonte predicted the difficulty will be solved as single chipset technology matures and chips that combine GPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi all on a single chip hit the market.

ABI Research also said acquisitions of GPS chipset providers by major silicon vendors will help spur the market. For instance, Broadcom acquired Global Locate, NXP picked up GloNav, and Atheros acquired u-Nav.

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