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11/14/06
Putting a global positioning system (GPS) in the global system for mobile communication (GSM) mobile phone has always been "a year away," said analysts.
But 2007 may be the year it finally arrives, with 25% of wideband code division multiple access (W-CDMA) handsets offering GPS by the end of 2008, according to a new study from ABI Research.
There are four important reasons for this, said ABI Research principal analyst Alan Varghese. "The first factor inducing vendors to include GPS is regulatory; that is, the mandates for emergency calling in the various regions.
"The second is competition - the CDMA carriers who have had GPS integrated in their handsets since 2002 have been turning on location-based services over the past year.
"A third is economic," said Varghese. "Carriers continue to look for ways to increase data ARPU (average revenue per user) and recoup some of their high licensing costs for 3G (third generation) spectrum. Finally, there is consumers' need for portable navigation and other applications driven by location awareness capabilities in the network."
Analysts said all these drivers - including increased accuracy requirements and the fact that existing network-based positioning technologies do not work as well for upcoming 3G and W-CDMA cellular standards - are pushing GPS integrated circuits (ICs) into the handset.
ABI Research analysts said 2007 is the year GSM carriers will issue requests for quotations (RFQs); it's also the year vendor selection and IC integration for the handset original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will take place. But by the end of 2008, a quarter of all 3G handsets will have GPS ICs included, and the average selling price (ASP) of the chipset will have dropped to $2.70.
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"SiRF (Technology Holdings) has been the leader in the GPS IC space for the last several years," said Varghese. "But in the mobile phone segment, Atmel/u-blox, Global Locate, GloNav, Nemerix, Texas Instruments and u-Nav (Microelectronics) will soon be nipping at their heels."
Source: ABI Research. Copyright © 2007 all rights reserved.
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