Location of Things market to hit $71B by 2025

Consumers eagerly adopted smartphones, excited to make calls but also play games and send emails. Today, those options seem provincial as our handheld devices can now order a car, find the quickest way to work or locate a child on their way home from school. And as we depend more on our smartphones, our use of services that rely on knowing where we are — called the 'Location of Things' — will only continue to grow.

So says Research and Markets, which has released a new report showing the location of things space growing to $71.6B by 2025. The research group points to apps, including Uber and Google Maps, as helping to drive the uptick.

The location of things space is considered a subset of the Internet of Things. Both require a connection to the internet, but in the former, a geographic location is fixed and used by an app to deliver additional information.

While the space has been dominated by mapping and navigation services — thank you Waze — apps around transportation services have grown substantially in 2017, says Research and Markets. Car technologies — those that can connect drivers to information or rides — are helping to drive this swing. But other apps — think Pokémon Go, for example — also fix a user's location to work. With Pokémon Go, the animated creatures only appear in certain spots, and a player must be located to play.

While most of the adoption will come through North America and Europe, the Asia Pacific region is also on the rise, with a 36 percent growth expected by 2025. Researchers point to brands including Google, Apple, Bosch, and Qualcomm as helping to lead the growth too.