MapQuest Moves Into Mobile Navigation Market

MapQuest is expanding its services in one of the fastest-growing navigational subsectors -- smartphones and handsets with navigational applications.

The company announced it is introducing two new products, MapQuest Navigator and Web-based mobile services.

MapQuest Navigator, to be offered in partnership with Telmap, will give users turn-by-turn, voice-guided directions via GPS (Global Positioning System).

The system includes a database of restaurants, hotels, theaters and other points of interest that consumers can navigate to, direct-dial to make reservations, or send to a friend via text message.

MapQuest is making the new services immediately available for Web-enabled mobile phones, which provide users with access to interactive maps and allow them to receive driving directions. The service is based on technology from InfoGin, a provider of Web-to-mobile content adaptation solutions.

Exploding Category

MapQuest will offer its Navigator service through major wireless providers later this year. Other cell phone service providers, such as Verizon and Sprint (NYSE: S), already offer or are planning to roll out similar functionality, according to Phil Magney, principal analyst for the Telematics Research Group.

The category of smartphones/handsets with navigational applications is close to being the fastest growing subsector in a product group that is "simply exploding," he told TechNewsWorld.

In 2005, 1.4 million in-vehicle navigational units were sold, according to TRG figures. There were sales of an additional 800,000 dedicated navigational portable devices, along with 700,000 smartphone/handsets that incorporate navigational functionality.

This year, according to Magney, sales of in-vehicle units will jump to 1.9 million, dedicated navigational products to 1.35 million and smartphones/handsets to 1.3 million.

"The numbers really take off as you extend further out," he said. "By 2011, the entire category will number 25 million units, with 5 million installed in vehicles, 3.2 million as dedicated navigational [devices] and 17 million phones."

Trend Drivers

There are a number of reasons behind the long-term projections that the smartphone category will surge. The enactment of a regulation requiring all handsets to have embedded GPS capabilities is one of the primary factors, according to Magney.

That regulation was pushed through for safety reasons -- so that individuals calling emergency lines could be located through their cell phone signals -- but it will have commercial ramifications as well.

The market can expect to see additional GSP-enabled applications developed for cell phones once the reg is in place, Magney said.

A growing comfort level with higher-end phones among consumers also factors into growing demand for such applications, AOL spokesperson Erin Gifford told TechNewsWorld.

Fifty-one percent of respondents in a new AP-AOL-Pew Research Center Mobile Lifestyle Survey released Monday, reported either wanting to use or already using mobile maps on their cell phones.

"Cell phone users are wanting to use their phones for so much more than just talking," Gifford said.