According to Statista, the current number of smartphone users in the world today is 3.5 billion, and this means 44.87% of the world’s population owns a smartphone. Location is essential in the modern connected world, and with smartphones and feature phones becoming essential for the modern-day human, location is an essential aspect of those devices.
Consumer demand will follow what was experienced by the smart phone boom, but with additional challenges for certain functionality like location technology. As feature phone and smart feature phone devices do not have the full suite of smart phone capabilities, experts in location like Skyhook, have had to adapt and evolve to leverage our expertise to meet those demands on more constrained devices. These constrained devices have highlighted the importance of easy and accessible integration.
There has been an increase in interest in feature phones for reasons other than the low price point.
Some additional use cases include:
- Elderly population, preferring simpler options with a physical keyboard, while still providing directions and emergency services.
- Construction workers and construction sites, where it is important to have a form of communication, but the risk of devices getting dirty or dropped is high.
- Low-income communities, able to afford a feature phone and access important features.
- Outdoor enthusiasts, enjoying more challenging, not smart phone friendly, environments, while staying connected in rural areas.
Mobile Device Management and Security
There is an increasing demand for services and digitization alongside increasing investments in R&D activities for the development of advanced IoT systems. Location, when incorporated into mobile device management and security applications, can address the need for real-time analytics and diagnostics, connected assets, machine security, device authentication, configuration, control, and software updates/maintenance. Through the centralization of the location provider to a single, reliable, and accurate source that’s used for a broad family of devices across an entire ecosystem, companies can access complete visibility, control, and permissions of devices from anywhere in the world. This allows for management of devices and remote control of functionality and administrative access permissions. An example of this remote control would be when a company sends a remote employee a new laptop with classified information on it, the company can confirm that the laptop has reached the correct address. The industries Skyhook anticipates seeing growth in include manufacturing, automobile, and targeted services.
Want to learn more? Read the rest of our white paper on the state of location and where we see the asset tracking industry moving in the future.
