While many innovative LBS (Location Based Services) applications such as friend finders and location based search will be launched by carriers in the next few years, personal navigation will remain the most important LBS category providing high value and clear benefits to end users. But according to ABI Research principal analyst Dominique Bonte, “Enterprise LBS applications for asset and vehicle tracking and work force management will become an important revenue generator for carriers in the future as companies will increasingly deploy mobile solutions to reduce costs, increase efficiency and improve customer service.

Outdoor GPS devices and solutions are quickly gaining momentum. An increasing number of high-end handheld outdoor GPS navigation devices with intuitive user interfaces and multimedia features, along with the emergence of converged outdoor software solutions, are driving overall demand. Combined with increased interest in the outdoors, the result is a thriving outdoor GPS ecosystem.

While in-car navigation will remain the most important application of GPS technology, the use of GPS in many other consumer, business, and industrial environments such as telematics and asset tracking will continue to grow. The GPS modernization project and the arrival of additional Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) such as GLONASS, Galileo, and Beidou/Compass will increase the availability, reliability, and precision of satellite positioning and stimulate the location ecosystem, expanding the market to more than 900 million units by 2013.

There is a new class of devices emerging on the horizon: a convergence of everyday consumer electronics and mobile broadband. Consumer electronics increasingly will include Wi-Fi for connectivity within the home and to the Internet; Wi-Fienabled portable consumer electronics devices are a bridge to the mobile consumer electronics devices. Service providers will offer services to these devices in addition to handsets and laptops. SK Telecom is doing this today for Samsung’s HSDPA-enabled camera, and Sprint Nextel and Clearwire will heavily promote connectivity for a wide range of WiMAX-enabled consumer electronics devices.

Revenue from shipments of removable memory cards for handsets is expected to be over $7 billion in 2007, compared with $5 billion expected from headset shipments including both Bluetooth and wired headsets, according to a recent study from ABI Research. Memory cards will continue to be the highest revenue-generating mobile phone accessory category over the next five years. ABI Research industry analyst Shailendra Pandey says, “With few exceptions, memory cards for handsets are bought by users separately from the handset purchase, whereas an increasing number of headsets are now being supplied inbox with the handsets.”

ABI Research announced the launch of a new source of business intelligence for the wireless industry, the Business Mobility Research Service. Like the company’s other Research Services, it provides a bundle of research and analysis products that blend strategic industry assessment with robust quantitative data. These include individual Research Reports and ABI Insights, along with highly granular Market Data and analyst inquiry support.

Estimates of Apple iPhone shipment volumes in the first weekend they were available have ranged from 140 thousand units to 500 thousand iPhone units depending upon who was asked. Meanwhile, ABI Research forecasts that the smartphone market segment will grow from 218 million units in 2007 to 426 million units in 2012. Now that we have a little distance from the launch, it’s time to ask: “Will the Apple iPhone change the smartphone market?” According to Stuart Carlaw, wireless research director at ABI Research, the answer is a qualified - Yes. “The Apple iPhone will not revolutionize the smartphone market,” he says, “but it is a significant evolutionary step forward.