“After several years of moderate growth, consumer telematics solutions are expected to become very popular in the future as drivers start to appreciate the advantages of GPS and cellular communication technology for improved safety, comfort and entertainment,” says ABI Research principal analyst Dominique Bonte. “According to our latest forecasts, by 2013 OEM and aftermarket consumer telematics hardware and services will generate annual revenue of $41 billion.”
The growth of consumer telematics will be further stimulated by three main factors. Car manufacturers will deploy telematics hardware as a standard feature enabling remote diagnostics, which reduces maintenance and repair costs. Governments will make telematics safety systems such as emergency calling mandatory in new cars in regions such as the EU. Insurance companies will provide premium discounts to drivers willing to install telematics systems to monitor their driving behavior and for stolen vehicle tracking and recovery.
An important evolution is the emergence of affordable portable and converged telematics solutions. As entry-level products they will play an important role in increasing consumers’ awareness of the benefits of telematics, which in turn will drive the adoption of OEM systems.
However, several barriers will need to be removed before consumer telematics can enjoy mass market adoption. Data communications costs charged by cellular carriers need to come down. Standardization efforts have to be accelerated in order to reduce fragmentation and hardware costs, and to allow end-to-end service offerings. Finally, services and user interfaces will have to be simplified dramatically in order to guarantee an intuitive user experience.
Posted to the site on 27th March 2008
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/30144.php