The mobile application or “apps” business is expected to be worth some $35.4 billion per year by 2025, according to global consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, with mobile apps also expected to be the “biggest disrupter” within the North American transportation industry – an industry worth $700 billion, according to the firm’s data.
Yet only about 30 of the more than 100 currently available trucking apps in North America are expected to survive until 2020 as competition in this particular space is fierce, noted Chandramowli Kailasam, team leader for commercial vehicle research at Frost & Sullivan, in a statement.
"Fleet optimization apps will drastically bring down cost barriers to adopt services that were previously only accessible through traditional telematics players requiring hardware,” he added.
“That will help small fleets and owner operators, which constitute 90% of the North American trucking carriers,” Kailasam emphasized. “Driver utility apps will make being on road easy for drivers with clear delivery instructions, documentation, receive payments, regulatory compliance, communication, point of interest (POI) services and most importantly to find loads with a press of a button to eliminate empty return miles.”
He pointed out that on-demand freight mobility apps will also allow for higher asset utilization among smaller fleets, helping reduce logistics costs for shippers due to lower brokerage fees, easing the truck capacity crunch, and reducing empty return or “backhaul” miles that currently total some 20 billion annually in North America.
