Location-Based- Services (LBS) provide location-specific services to users, through GPS or wireless network. LBS provide services such as navigation and mapping of points of interests; weather information; location-based advertising; social networking; tracking field force, etc. These applications leverage the user's physical location to provide the desired information to the user.
Recently, there has been a significant increase in the use of LBS worldwide. This can be mainly attributed to the increasing need for instant services, widespread availability of highly sophisticated portable devices (particularly smart phones), and host of new location- aware applications.
Among the services provided by LBS, navigational is leading the market, followed by social networking (friend finder), traffic management, etc.
The LBS Market in China is still in a nascent stage, and is considered to have a huge potential. The growing number of mobile phone subscribers, rising demand for navigational services, decreasing price of GPS devices & GPS enabled smart phones, support from Chinese government, and available 3G infrastructure are expected to drive the market.
Location-based Advertising is gaining momentum as a new advertising medium, in China. In this medium, advertisers use the location of mobile phone user to send targeted advertising. It provides more targeted and efficient marketing tools for the advertisers, providing an additional revenue source for the LBS vendors.
The report by TechNavio Insights forecasts the size of the Location Based Services (LBS) market in China over the period 2008-2012. Further, it discusses the key market trends, drivers and challenges of the Chinese LBS market, and profiles some of the key vendors of this market.