Juniper: $12.7 Billion Global LBS Market by 2014
Juniper Research has released a report that projects the global mobile location based services (MLBS) to reach $12.7 billion by 2014.
This is different in scope from BIA/Kelsey’s forecast released yesterday — or at least the mobile component of that forecast that projects U.S. mobile local ad revenues to reach $2.2 billion by 2014. Juniper is looking at the global market for location based mobile services.
Usage will be highest in Asia the report projects, but the most revenues will come from Western Europe. This includes both subscription and advertising revenues. But interestingly, the firm projects the advertising portion — where our forecast focuses — to grow at a faster rate (via TechCrunch):
“Location-based applications are extremely interesting for brands and retailers in that they allow those companies to direct consumers to outlets in their vicinity while simultaneously providing information about the products on offer. When these are allied to measures such as mobile coupons and vouchers, you have the combination of information and financial incentive which can be compelling for consumers.”
Growth drivers include hardware evolution, application marketplace proliferation, higher capacity network deployments, and the consumer adoption that hinges on all of the above. These factors are currently pushing the growth of services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Gowalla, Loopt, et al. We’ll see advertiser interest follow.
