51% of the $118 million mobile ad dollars during Q2 2007 came from personal location services.
Personal Location Services assist mobile subscribers locate friends and business locations, track assets, participate in social networks and offer the means for care givers to monitor Alzheimer’s victims.
There are numerous obstacles to be overcome by personal location services developers. Learning that consumers may not value the utility of a GPS PLS App on their mobile phone until they experience the benefits, people tracking publishers like www.locimobile.com are making FREE versions of paid Apps available at the iPhone Store. Of the 2 billion mobile Apps downloaded,13 million were for PLS Apps during Q2.
To date PLS services have only penetrated 5% of the handset market – while games, ringtones and SMS have penetrated about 13% of that market. PLS costs more than 2X other mobile applications. PLS applications typically cost $9 per month per mobile user, but other geo-specific Apps including pictures, sports information and weather applications cost but $5 per subscriber.
As more comsumers begin to value GPS/PLS services, it is expected that the costs of providing the services will be underwritten in whole or part by advertisers that will leverage the technology to offer messages proximate to the subscriber’s location.
Location Based Services October 31st, 2009
