Rafay Khan, vice president, business development, Asia-Pacific, Navteq
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| In 2009, we can expect the opportunities for LBS offerings to grow dramatically for developers, entrepreneurs and service providers across Asia. | ||
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Q: What is a trend affecting the location-based services industry?
The location-based services (LBS) industry made great strides in 2008. This is no surprise given the pervasiveness of sophisticated handheld devices and the tech-savvy consumers across Asia.
Demand for mobile navigation devices increased dramatically amongst consumers, with analyst house Canalys estimating that 1.3 million mobile navigation devices shipped in APAC in Q1 2008; this represents a 67 percent growth over the same period last year.
We have seen an increase in demand across a host of industries including in-vehicle, portable mobile devices, solutions for enterprises, location-based services and Internet portals.
What is the scene like in Asia for LBS?
Navteq's global developer competition was also launched in this region for the first time in 2008, and the Asia-Pacific leg received more entries than the North America and Europe segments of the Challenge, thereby demonstrating the potential for LBS in the region.
The entries further indicated that the two biggest trends in this region were around social networking and user-generated content.
In 2009, we can expect the opportunities for LBS offerings to grow dramatically for developers, entrepreneurs and service providers across Asia.
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