Mobile services providing information relevant to a user's location are
proving popular with business users in China, and sales will grow as a wider
range of suitable handsets become available, according to research firm
In-Stat.
Personal navigation and local information services have proved particularly
popular among early adopters in the country.
Mobile location-based services are a potential source of growth for wireless
carriers, service providers, navigation software vendors and mobile phone
manufacturers, according to the In-Stat researchers.
"In the future, we believe that services that combine location-based and
other mobile value-added services will be very competitive," said Frances Guan,
an In-Stat research analyst based in China.
However, while users find service prices acceptable, a lack of affordable
handsets equipped with GPS is retarding the growth of the location-based
services market in China. Early adopters have also found existing software and
interfaces hard to use.
But Guan predicted that these barriers to market growth are on the way out.
"Falling GPS phone prices, and more attractive and easy-to-use applications,
will see mobile location-based services accepted on a large scale," she said.
A recent In-Stat survey showed that location-based services in China are most
popular with the under 40s, particularly "students and technical engineers with
high and middle range incomes".
Most existing users of the services are business people with above-average
incomes, In-Stat's survey found.
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