According to a press release from ABI Research, the mobile friend and family finder market in North America will reach 20 million by 2011. ABI is estimating 500,000 users on currently deployed solutions such as Sprint Family Locator , Verizon Wireless Chaperone, Family Locator from Disney, and other recently launched services such as Helio's Buddy Beacon. According to the research, the customer base for these services will more than double every year for the next 5 years.
The press release is a sales pitch for the full blown research report, so it is unclear what will drive the growth, but the release does mention the expectation that GSM operators (read: Cingular) will begin to deploy location based services in 2007.
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