ABI Research Ranks Unacast, T-Ink, Philips, and VMob as New Innovators in Indoor Location, Analytics, and Advertising Technology in Retail

Google receives top honor out of 40 companies that ABI Research, the leader in transformative technology innovation market intelligence, ranks as leaders across indoor location, analytics, and advertising in retail. The report evaluates each company on 17 parameters across three categories: overall, innovation, and implementation. Across all three classes, Google claims the top spot, with Apple and Aisle411 achieving second and third place, respectively. Zebra Technologies sits fourth after a strong year, while Facebook falls to fifth. 

“The story isn’t Google, Apple, or Facebook,” says Patrick Connolly, Principal Analyst at ABI Research. “It’s the exciting new companies joining this year’s top ten, including WeChat, Microsoft, SK Telecom/Shopkick, VMob, and Tyco/ShopperTrak.”

There are a large number of new entrants working with LED/VLC, BLE Beacons, sensor fusion, shelf-level analytics, and advertising. No matter the company, collaboration is crucial in 2016 for scale and reach. A new generation of high accuracy location technologies is emerging, as evident in the report’s inclusion of OmniTrail, Philips, Quppa, and T-Ink.

“Handset-based indoor location vendors are also becoming more prevalent, and the greater number of advertising-focused companies, like Unacast and Spark Compass, in the rankings reflects new opportunities in out-of-home, smart cities, and online-to-offline retargeting,” continues Connolly. “We have also seen more established vendors, like Cisco, Zebra and Point Inside, making a lot of progress over the last 12 months, maintaining strong positions despite the myriad of new technologies and vendors.” 

Google’s Project Tango could prove a real game-changing technology and represent a major leap forward in retail technology, offering significant improvements in mapping, location accuracy, and customer engagement for in-store analytics. “Microsoft’s Kinect also has huge potential to significantly change the retail industry,” concludes Connolly. “Additionally, T-Ink and Tyco’s new solutions solve a lot of issues surrounding inventory management, loss prevention, and new customer analytics.”

And while the retail technology market remains in its nascency, ABI Research unveils a few dark horses. Though there are many companies within its top 40 achieving incredible innovations in retail technology, ABI Research cites IndoorAtlas and VMob as two companies to closely watch in 2016.

These findings are part of ABI Research’s Location Technologies Service, which includes research reports, market data, insights, and competitive assessments.

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About ABI Research

For more than 25 years, ABI Research has stood at the forefront of technology market intelligence, partnering with innovative business leaders to implement informed, transformative technology decisions. The company employs a global team of senior analysts to provide comprehensive research and consulting services through deep quantitative forecasts, qualitative analyses and teardown services. An industry pioneer, ABI Research is proactive in its approach, frequently uncovering ground-breaking business cycles ahead of the curve and publishing research 18 to 36 months in advance of other organizations. In all, the company covers more than 60 services, spanning 11 technology sectors. For more information, visit www.abiresearch.com.