Indoor Location Deployments on Course to Hit 25,000 in 2014

It has been a breakthrough year for indoor location for retail, with ABI Research’s quarterly indoor location technology tracker forecasting deployments to approach 25,000 by the end of 2014, up more than 100% on 2013.

Senior Analyst Patrick Connolly commented, “Vertically, the bulk of deployments are in clothing, big box, grocery, and shopping malls in 2014, driven by a variety of applications such as customer analytics, offers/coupons, product search, staff management, and navigation. Looking into 2015, we can expect to see the quick serve restaurant (QSR) market growing with a significant demand for queue management technologies as illustrated by companies like Starbucks and Taco Bell which launched queue-skipping smartphone applications in 2014.”

“What is interesting is the technology mix today. We are seeing growth across all major technologies, including BLE, Wi-Fi, and audio, with 2015 being an important year for handset-based location, sensor fusion, magnetic field, and LED. Regionally, the focus is very much on the United States in 2014 but there are now many worldwide deployments. This is a market where we expect to see concurrent growth across the globe with a slew of regional and vertical winners, rather than one company dominating the whole space,” added Connolly.

Looking at market share from ABI Research’s recent Indoor Location Technology OEMs Competitive Assessment featuring 28 leading companies; shopkick/SK Telecom, Point Inside, and Aisle411 are now leading in deployments. Over the past 12 months there has been a considerable change in deployments as companies have moved from a handful of deployments to getting into the hundreds and thousands of stores. In 2015, we also expect to see camera analytics companies like ShopperTrak, Irisys, and Brickstream playing an increasing role as they expand their offering into BLE, Wi-Fi, and in-store analytics—expect to see a lot of announcements around this at NRF 2015 as these companies launch new technologies and partnerships.

These findings are part of ABI Research’s Location Technologies Market Research.

ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of trends in global connectivity and other emerging technologies. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research’s worldwide team of experts advises thousands of decision makers through 70+ research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.