Survey: Indoor Positioning, Demand For Geomagnetic Poised For "Explosive Growth"
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Results show 99 percent want indoor positioning systems, 95 percent want it without hardware.
An independent survey by global Platform-as-a-Service company IndoorAtlas found widespread and growing demand for scalable, accurate, low-cost indoor positioning systems (IPS). The survey, conducted by Vanson Bourne, queried 331 business and marketing decision makers and executives in charge of location-based apps in North America, U.K., and APAC markets and revealed 99 percent want indoor positioning systems and 95 percent said it would be more valuable without hardware.
The 2016 Indoor Positioning Research Report also found the top four drivers for IPS are to attract customers via proximity marketing (55 percent); increase sales (55 percent); increase usability of venues (48 percent); and drive customer experience (47 percent). Meanwhile, the most popular venues for IPS deployments include airports, hotel resorts, hospitals/health centers, offices/business venues, and shopping malls.
“The survey results underscore the demand and trends that we see among our customers worldwide,” said Janne Haverinen, CEO of IndoorAtlas. “Scalability, accuracy, and cost are dominant themes, particularly for IPS deployments across large or multiple venues. Companies will gain the most value and efficiencies by selecting technologies that can enable them to scale quickly and easily.”
The survey examined three foundational IPS technologies including Bluetooth beacon, Wi-Fi, and geomagnetic, as well as the deployment strategies by vertical and geographic region. It found 99 percent of respondents either have implemented or will implement IPS within two years, but geomagnetic deployments may soon outpace Bluetooth beacon and WiFi deployments.
The survey further found organizations want scalable options in IPS that allow them to easily deploy location-based apps across multiple venues and geographic locations. While 95 percent of decision makers said there is value in an IPS that requires little to no hardware, 98 percent said geomagnetic indoor positioning can help them resolve their scalability challenges. Accuracy is also important, with proximity marketing and way finding the leading location-based app features requiring IPS.
An earlier study by Research and Markets estimated the indoor location market would skyrocket to $3.96 billion by 2019, as Business Solutions Magazine reported. A second report from MarketsandMarkets estimated the market will grow to $4.4 billion by 2019.
An Opus Research report, Mapping the Indoor Marketing Opportunity, explained the interest in this technology, noting, “Marketers will increasingly be able to determine the real-world impact of digital advertising. Offline analytics and indoor location will change the way retailers, venue owners, manufacturers, and brands think about operations, marketing, and the customer experience in general. In a few years we may look back and see the combination of smartphones and offline location awareness as a development nearly as radical and disruptive as the Internet itself has been.”