According to a recent research report published by IE Market Research (IEMR), the global market for GPS navigation and location based services will increase to $13.4 billion in 2014, a compound annual growth rate of 51.3%. In the USA and Canada, the GPS navigation and location based search market will increase to over $4.3 billion. The USA and Canada will represent nearly one-third (32.4%) of the world market share for GPS navigation and location based services spending over the next 5 years. The USA will still be one of the largest single markets for location based services in the world with a compound annual growth rate of 37.5% forecasted over the next five years. The full IEMR report (single-copy) costs $2,995.

The adoption of GPS in mobile handsets is largely being driven by smart phones. Given the proliferation of smartphones these figures are not all that surprising, despite moderate industry growth in the past. GPS-enabled smartphones such as the Apple iPhone and Google Android are playing a huge part in the GPS technology revolution that IEMR is forecasting. Google now includes free GPS navigation for its smartphones and Apple’s iPhone app store is filled with dozens of free and low-cost navigation applications. in 2009, more than 40 percent of all smartphone owners used their mobile devices to get turn-by-turn directions, according to data from Compete, an industry leading web analytics firm. For iPhone users, the figure is even higher at over 80 percent. After all, smart phones are, well, smart. It’s convenient to not only use your phone to take make calls, but also to send SMS text messages, take pictures, send emails on the go, search the web, listen to music, and yes, even to get turn-by-turn directions.