Global shipments of GPS-enabled GSM/WCDMA handsets grew almost 97 per cent in 2019, according to new research from telecom analyst company Berg Insight.
According to Bergs report, 295m units were shipped in 2010. Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.8 per cent, the company forecasts that shipments will reach 940m units by 2015.
The company also predicts that GPS and WLAN will start to feature more prevalently in “medium- and low-end smartphones”. 
“There are numerous compelling use cases for WLAN in mobile phones, ranging from offloading data traffic from increasingly congested mobile networks to media synchronisation and hybrid navigation services,” says André Malm, senior analyst at Berg Insight. “Hybrid navigation technologies are necessary to enable reliable positioning indoors. New multi-mode GPS receivers that also support the Russian GLONASS satellite system are already available in handsets. When using the two systems in combination, more visible satellites will increase the chance to receive sufficiently strong signals to get a fix in urban canyons.”
The company also predicts that shipments of NFC-enabled handsets will increase from less than 2m units in 2010 to 400m by 2015.
