Here in my car… connected vehicles could accelerate m-commerce still further by 2017, study suggests

Drivers in North America and Western Europe will be the next lucrative consumer market for m-commerce, apps and social media, with Juniper Research’s recent report predicting that a massive 20% of all cars will be connected via mobile in 2017.

While the report also predicts strong growth within the more traditional embedded consumer telematics service, Smartphone tethering and in-vehicle apps will cause huge pressure on the price of vehicle manufacturer’s own telematics infotainment services.

Smartphone tethering will be a free service for vehicle consumers, suggests the report, and will allow smartphone’s to be used as a hub for allowing content, such as social media, into the vehicle. Other promising products that could be sold to consumer vehicles include music, navigation, news and entertainment, as well as offering even more m-commerce and m-retail applications.

Juniper also suggests that advancements in entertainment head-units and Smartphone useage would help lead this growth.

Further findings from the report show that trials of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure in markets have proved successful, although wide spread growth remains a way off.

Unfortunately, positive predictions of vehicle-internet will have slow growth due, only due to the new vehicle market itself holding back its development.

Juniper Research’s report author Anthony Cox explained, “Sky-high smartphone ownership and a standardised approach to integrating apps into vehicle head-unit mean that the barriers to making the connected car a reality have all but gone.”

New standards such as ‘MirrorLink’ will be fundamental in creating foundations for connected-cars to flourish, says Juniper.

MirrorLink is a technology standard that allows consumers’ to access their phone using the same controls they use for accessing the car radio, climate control and navigation system.