Forecast: 550M GPS handsets to ship in 2012

More than 550 million GPS-enabled handsets will ship by 2012 according to a new forecast released by market intelligence firm ABI Research, which cites the growth of mobile navigation solutions as well as location-based services like friend finders, local search and geotagging for the boost. While ABI notes that operators, handset makers and service providers are all looking to capitalize on LBS applications, widespread adoption hinges on reducing costs, power consumption and footprint of GPS chipsets--ABI points to single chipset technologies and combination chips integrating GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi as primary catalysts to growth. ABI Research principal analyst Dominique Bonte adds that while most CDMA handsets are already GPS-enabled, GPS is also set to become a standard feature in GSM smartphones.

For more on the ABI forecast:
- read this release

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