GPS industry is going down say TomTom

[feejo]

http://www2.canoe.com/techno/nouvelles/archives/2008/04/20080428-110826.html

Sorry it's in french, maybe someone can translate it.

 

[tom720]

The industry of the GPS to crossroads

The market of the GPS would be already saturated. It is in any case what affirms the analyst ?ric de Graaf, of the Petercam group, in the light of the last financial statements of TomTom NV, one of the most important manufacturers of apparatuses GPS in the world: "For the first time, we attended a reduction in the prices, but volumes did not increase sufficiently to compensate. It is the signal indicating that the market is saturated ". The sales of TomTom fell of 22% and its profits Nets were only 12 M$ for the first three months of the year, compared to 70 M$ for the same period, last year. The industry of the GPS is dominated by three giants.

The companies TomTom, Garmin and MiTac (owner of the marks Navman and Mio) control approximately 80% of all the market, but several observers expect that the competition is accentuated, with the arrival on the market of very powerful companies, like Google, Sony, Nokia and possibly APPLE. The analysts do not get along on the evolution of the GPS in the short and medium term. Some affirm that the apparatuses which do not offer that function GPS have to know the same fate as the pocket calculators, namely to disappear little by little and to be integrated into other apparatuses. Others, on the contrary, believe that a large manufacturer will be able to impose an original product, a little like made APPLE, with its iPod, in the world of the walkmans. Within three years, the Gartner firm estimates that there will be more than 500 million cellular telephones, with integrated function GPS, comparatively to 95 million apparatuses, offering exclusively the GPS. For its part, the analyst David Niederman, firm Pacific Crest Securities, believes that there will be always a market for genuine apparatuses GPS, because of their facility of use in a vehicle. Even its of bell on behalf of one of the business leaders of TomTom, Harold Goddijn, which believes that within five years, approximately 50% of the drivers of vehicles will use a GPS in their displacements. Another framework of the company estimates that navigation using a GPS integrated into cellular appears more complicated, because of the surface of the screen and the use of the batteries for long displacements.

 

[Smokiewolf]

Interesting. I could see a device like the Iphone integrated with GPS capability replacing the stand alone GPS device. Lots of geocachers use a palm, a GPS, and sometimes an automotive GPS at the same time. Something like the Iphone would combine all of those devices. I think it's ripe for the picking, but what do I know, and someone else will be making billions off of it.

 

[Michael Quinlan]

Before getting a standalone GPS device I used Telenav and/or Viamoto on my phone. In my case, the phone could not be used for voice calls and GPS navigation at the same time, and it became necessary to get a standalone device for GPS navigation. I can see combined devices infringing on the market of standalone devices, but not eliminating it entirely.

 

[Smokiewolf]

I agree. I think that most sound mided people like us would have it that way, but most of the sheeple out there would run out and buy something like that because of slick marketing.

 

[GAW]

If device makers like TomTom stay only in their current limited market segment, they will eventually get steamrolled by the market.

A good example of this was AR (Acoustic Research) some years back, who pioneered hi-fidelity speakers years ago had very superior products right up until they folded (you will see their name only on cables now...).

Another company that made overpriced and inferior sounding products (and still does - Bose) has grown into giant - but they did it by expanding into many market segments and with superior marketing and merchandising strategies.

TomTom should stand back and view the larger market as a whole and look for opportunities and possibly partners, otherwise a fast moving market may pass them by in very short order.

I got a great closeout deal on AR speakers as they folded - but wish they were still around - same would be the case with TomTom.

 

[F22]

In addition, in the US and probably Canada, there are probably large areas where DATA is not available which most phones need in order to update locations on the maps or even show maps. Clearly, as the phone manufacturers realize that, then there probably will be maps on SD cards but for the moment, that is limited.