• April 4, 2008

Driven by an increase in GPS-enabled handsets, revenue from location-based services is expected to hit $13.3 billion by 2013--up from an estimated $515 million in 2007.

A new study by ABI Research also projects personal navigation and enterprise-related services will generate the highest sales--worth about $4.3 billion and $6.5 billion. respectively, per year, by 2013. Other categories expected to take off in the next several years include friend-finder and family-tracker applications and location information services.

Carriers are already heading in that direction. Verizon Wireless last week announced a find-a-friend service in partnership with social mapping provider Loopt. Verizon, Sprint and other operators also offer family-tracking services on certain GPS phones.

--Mark Walsh