NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Proxbook, the world’s largest directory of proximity companies, has released its Q3 2016 Proxbook Report, which has aggregated information from more than 350 Proximity Solution Providers and reveals the latest trends, facts and figures from the global proximity industry as well as the growth and opportunity for proximity marketing in the transportation industry including airports and ground mass transit. This is the 6th edition of the Proxbook Report.
“The Q3 Proxbook Report is the most in-depth analysis of the proximity technology specific to the transportation industry,” said Thomas Walle, co-founder & CEO of Unacast. “With an ‘always connected’ customer base of travelers, proximity technology presents a massive opportunity for transportation providers and their partners to communicate with passengers in real time. We already see that the transportation industry is a leading vertical in being smart with their data by monetizing their infrastructure. What is even more impressive is the fact that the majority of transportation companies currently planning their deployments are already looking to capitalize on the data.”
Key Transportation Statistics
- 35% of the top 20 American airports have already deployed beacons.
- 90% of global airports are undertaking either a major program or a trial project related to mobile apps.
- Nearly half of airports (48%) are implementing commercial sensor deployments over the next three years.
- 36% of airports are implementing a proximity pilot project. Only 16% of airports have no plans with sensor technology currently.
- Half (49%) of airports planning to directly contact passengers via their mobile phone over the next three years.
- According to SITA, by 2019 84% of airports plan to monetize the data collected through mobile interactions and proximity interactions within the next three years.
The mobile app is a bottleneck for many proximity projects, mainly because marketers are struggling to provide real value with an app. This is not the case in transportation, as an Exploratory Analysis of a Transit App in New York City found that 80% of users are using the app two times or more per day. This opens the perfect window for timely and relevant customer communication. This exploratory analysis found that the MTA could increase its annual revenue by as much as $350M while increasing the ticket price as little as 5%. A proximity solution on top of the central app would provide immense value and further increase the satisfaction for riders by using real-time information, loyalty programs and indoor navigation. Monetization of that data presents an interesting opportunity for brands/retailers and other interested parties looking to reach everyday riders.
“The Zurich main station is Switzerland’s largest and most complex train station and Swiss Federal Railways SBB hub for innovative services. Together with Infsoft GmbH, we equipped the train station with over 200 shops with more than 1200 Beacons to provide indoor navigation and location based special deals through the app ‘My station.’ The project was very successful and in the next step, we want to expand the location based services to offer better interaction with our customers,” said David Wenger, Marketing & Communication at Zurich Main Station.
Industry Findings:
- Support for Google’s Eddystone beacon has risen 6 percentage points from Q2 to a total of 55% of the industry.
- The first Proximity Solution Provider index (PSPi) ranks Proxbook profiles and is automatically calculated based on whether the company is in commercial or pilot stage, number of use cases, geographic presence, number of clients, sensors deployed, and employees. The PSPi is divided by hardware and platform:
- Top 5 Hardware:
1) Estimote (US)
2) Kontakt.io (Poland)
3) Accent Systems (Spain)
4) Cisco (US)
5) Sensoro (US)
- Top 10 Platforms:
1) Proxama (UK)
2) Gimbal (US)
3) In The Pocket (Belgium)
4) OnyxBeacon (Romania)
5) Tamoco (UK)
6) Spark Compass (US)
7) inBeacon (Netherlands)
8) XtremePush (Ireland)
9) BluVision (US)
10) Liki Solution (Finland)
- Some of the biggest changes to the proximity marketplace from Q2 to Q3 have been the rise in proximity advertising networks, which are up 6.2% as well as a 3.3% increase in Wi-Fi based services.
About Unacast
With 2 million beacons and over 60 partners, Unacast is the world’s largest network of beacon and proximity companies, connecting the physical world to the digital world. Through the Unacast PROX network, Unacast enables a scalable global solution for retailers and brands to use beacon and proximity data for online retargeting and attribution. Thomas Walle and co-founder Kjartan Slette, were part of the founding team behind TIDAL, the music streaming company sold to Jay Z.
Unacast is the backend of proximity that aggregates and provides a unified platform for the proximity and advertising industry, solving the fragmentation problem to the benefit of both the supply and demand side. Unacast is the first company to enable a scalable way for retailers and brands to retarget customers online based on accurate behavior in the physical space.
