According to a new research report by Berg Insight, global shipments of GPS-enabled GSM/WCDMA handsets increased almost 97 percent in 2010 to 295 million units. Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.8 percent, shipments are forecasted to reach 940 million units in 2015. The attach rates for wireless connectivity technologies in handsets including GPS, Bluetooth and WLAN are increasing steadily as the adoption of smartphones accelerates. These connectivity technologies are already a standard feature on high-end smartphones. Adoption of GPS and WLAN will also increase rapidly in the medium- and low-end smartphone segments.
The attach rate for WLAN connectivity in handsets reached 20 percent in 2010. Berg Insight forecasts shipments of WLAN-enabled handsets to reach 900 million in 2015. “There are numerous compelling use cases for WLAN in mobile phones, ranging from offloading data traffic from increasingly congested mobile networks to media synchronisation and hybrid navigation services”, said André Malm, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight. “Hybrid navigation technologies are necessary to enable reliable positioning indoors.
