Huawei aims to launch its own business-facing mapping service in October, with Russian internet service company Yandex and Booking.com already embracing the initiative, reports China’s media.
The location and mapping service company HERE, in partnership with data analytics company Continual, launched two new data services, HERE Cellular Signals and HERE Traffic Analytics, aiming to increase its values for mobile operators in addition to the transport and autonomous car industries.
It has been announced Nokia’s HERE mapping solutions will be powering search engine Baidu outside its home country China. Nokia said the search giant, which already uses HERE for its desktop version of its location and mapping services, will add the solution to its map apps for Android and iOS.
In the wake of the problems surrounding Apple’s own Maps application Google has now launched its own mapping app for the iOS platform. Although Google Maps was preinstalled on previous versions of the iOS platform, Google did not offer a version of its app for the latest iteration, iOS6. Instead Apple, having dispensed with a native installation of Google Maps, created its own mapping application in a move to take more control of the assets on its devices.
Customer data collected by operators presents an intriguing opportunity and some are finding unusual partners to team up with. France’s SFR is one such operator and Mathieu Gras, head of location based services (LBS), explained that the firm has found itself contributing its data to help increase blood donations among its customer base, build Paris’ public transport infrastructure and even fight crime.
UK mobile operator O2 has announced a significant push into location based marketing services in a bid to drive customer loyalty. The Priority Moments service, which builds on the firm’s existing Priority loyalty scheme, sees the carrier partnering with a wide range of UK retail and leisure outlets to offer discounts and special offers to its customers.
Facebook, the largest social network in the world with more than half a billion users, has launched a location-enabled service element that lets smartphone users publicise their whereabouts through the site. Users can also tag friends who are with them, and locate other friends that may be nearby. The service chimes with many of the location-based service concepts touted within the mobile industry when LBS first rose to prominence a decade or more ago.
US electronics giant Best Buy, which co-owns a retail business with Carphone Warehouse, is to launch a location-based in-store service for smartphone owners, allowing them to receive and process discount coupons and special offers from their handset while in the firm’s retail
Vodafone has announced that it will make its location based services software open source group-wide, following its decision to step back from offering turn-by-turn navigation services. Vodafone acquired Swedish location firm Wayfinder for €26m in December 2008 but revealed in March this year that the unit would cease operations in the face of free offerings from the likes of Nokia and Google.
Satisfying the developing world’s demand for value added services
In emerging markets without pervasive fixed telecommunication infrastructures, mobile phones keep populations connected and current with the rest of the world. Mobile web browsing is becoming the cornerstone of mobile content.
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