Smartphones and standardization efforts by auto makers mean almost all barriers to connected cars are now gone, Juniper Research claims.
The firm predicts a fifth of consumer cars in Western Europe and North America will be app capable by 2017, due to rising smartphone penetration and advancements in entertainment head-units in vehicles.
“Sky-high smartphone ownership and a standardized approach to integrating apps into the vehicle head-unit mean that the barriers to making the connected car a reality have all but gone,” says Anthony Cox, associate analyst at Juniper Research.
While the growing use of in-car apps is tipped to push down the price of auto manufacturers’ own telematics infotainment services, the firm predicts additional revenue streams for car makers will emerge from the ‘big data’ generated by telematics services.
The report also predicts that global telematics service providers are likely to result from consolidation in the commercial fleet telematics sector; that widespread deployment of vehicle to vehicle information systems is still a long way off; and a note that insurance firms in the US, UK and Italy are already utilizing telematics systems.