OYSTER BAY, NY -- The global market for mobile location technologies is projected to rise from $23 billion in 2005 to surpass $39 billion by 2010, an average annual growth rate of 11.3%, according to a soon-to-be-released report from Business Communications Co.

Vehicle navigation systems and telematics, the largest application segments in 2004 with more than 44% of the market, should be superseded before 2010 by people and animal tracking, BCC said.

The latter includes GPS and other location-aware mobile phone handsets, and is expected to achieve sales of $15.6 billion or 46% of the mobile location market by 2010. Surveying and mapping and mobile asset management are the other two largest applications, and will represent 8% and 11.5%, respectively, by 2010, said BCC.

While it was the GPS satellite system that launched the mobile location market, today some 80% of all applications use either augmented GPS technologies such as the wide area augmentation system (WAAS) or hybrid systems like wireless assisted-GPS (WA-GPS). Network-based systems such as enhanced observed time difference (EOTD) and wireless LAN (WLAN) technologies also account for a small but growing share of the market.

Complete or integrated GPS solutions (as opposed to discrete hardware and software components purchased separately by the user) increasingly dominate the mobile location market. Integrated solutions that accounted for an estimated 90% of the market are expected to increase their market share to 94% by 2010.

The U.S. is expected to retain its position as the world's largest market for mobile location technologies through 2010, according to BCC. Western Europe (i.e., the EU plus EFTA nations) should replace Japan as the second-largest geographical market. As a group, markets outside of the U.S., Western Europe and Japan are projected to increase their global market shares to 20% by 2010.

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