Some figures of tracking device penetration in various markets

During the last few years the GNSS industry has seen continuous growth in the number of firms that use satellite navigation to create value-added services, ranging from GIS and land surveys to LBS and ITS. This trend toward the provision of consumer services was forecast in many studies carried out in the 1990s, later confirmed by recent research (mainly before selective availability was deactivated). It was reported that in terms of revenues, the aviation market for GPS tracking device had a growth of 10%, the marine market 11%, the military and timing markets both just under 25%, and the land market just over 24%. Approximately 62% of the total North American GPS market revenue was from land applications. With the turning off of SA the improved accuracy has encouraged the implementation of new navigation services.

A further shift toward service provision is due to the modernization of portable tracker and the European navigation activities, with the introduction of EGNOS in 2004 and with the GALILEO constellation scheduled to become operational in 2008. In 2000 the European Commission launched the Galilei Project to survey preliminary analysis and definition of requirements for the development of GALILEO. One of the main results was that the earlier view that GALILEO and GPS would be competitors had to be reverted, indicating that the default receiver will be a combined GPS tracker and GALILEO one. Forecasts envisage that more than 2.5 billion GALILEO-enabled receivers will be in use by 2020, with the use of combined GPS/GALILEO receivers being the norm by 2012.

The Galilei Project also estimated that the product market will begin to saturate after 2015, leaving its dominant position, whereas the service market will become the driving force up to 2020. In the latter, mobile phone and road transport navigation services [vehicle telematics, road charging, and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS)] will dominate the others. GALILEO, operating as a second constellation, will improve availability and overall performance, hence increasing user perception of service levels and, consequently, bolstering market growth. It is estimated that the number of GNSS-enabled mobile phones will reach two billion by 2020. This is equivalent to a penetration of 70% of the overall mobile phone market (which will consist of about 2.9 billion handsets). As far as road transport is concerned, it is envisioned that 495 million vehicles will have a GNSS terminal by 2020. This includes mass-market vehicles (i.e.,cars) and commercial vehicles (i.e., trucks, buses, and light commercial vehicles), as shown in Figures 10.5 and 10.6. In the car market, North America and Europe will have the leading role, with a similar number of cars equipped with GNSS receivers by 2020.

However, in Europe, there are a larger number of cars and a stronger need for information services due to higher level of congestion in traffic. These features make the rate of penetration of GNSS receivers in the European car market higher than in North America, as shown in Figure 10.5 by the greater slope of line relative to Europe. On the contrary, in the commercial vehicle market, North America leads (note that sports utility vehicles, or SUVs, are included in the number of commercial vehicles). It is assessed that the percentage of penetration of these systems by 2020 in the whole commercial vehicles market will be 50% (absolute value 130 million). With regard to the use of GALILEO signals onboard commercial vehicles, it has to be noted that, in this market segment the replacement cycle of trucks or buses that have already adopted electronic tracker is longer than that in the mobile phone segment. It is predicted that 16 million and 114 million commercial vehicles will be fully equipped with combined GPS/GALILEO receivers by 2010 and 2020, respectively.