Eighty-seven per cent of the respondents of a recent survey said they had no problems in letting someone see their location if their phone were to broadcast it continuously.

The survey conducted among 1200 consumers by Canalys, key providers of continuous advisory services, revealed that there is significant potential for certain navigation and location-based services, particularly among the younger, tech-savvy, middle-class consumers in India.

While India is still in its very early stages as a market for portable navigation devices, and GPS is not yet widely understood as a technology, it is already a significant market for smart phones, with over 3.5 million shipping over the past year, the survey said.

The number of consumers prepared to let office colleagues or all their social networking contacts see their location were also higher in India.

The ability to track family members or friends was the location-based service in which most expressed interest, with 40 percent citing this as the most or second most useful from a list of applications presented.