Market GPS systems doubled in one year

Research company Canalys recently presented the Mobile Navigation Q2 sales figures for the European, Mid-eastern and African regions.

In the period April until June 2006, almost 2,5 million navigational devices were sold, which is an increase of 97% when compared to the same period one year before. It's also striking to see how much bigger the increase in sales figures is for PND's as opposed to PDA's. No less than 87% of the systems are Portable Navigation Devices. 10% are PDA's and only 3% are wireless PDA's.

Market leader

Number one in the market for the European region is TomTom. No less than 30,5% of all the sold units are produced by this company. In the last year, TomTom's market share increased with 10%.

	Q2 2006	%	Q2 2005	%
TomTom	747.610	30,5	258.530	20,8
Garmin	408.660	16,7	102.530	8,2
Mio	232.990	9,5	157.470	12,6
Navman	156.510	6,4	88.640	7,1
Other	903.150	36,9	638.700	51,3
Total	2.448.920		1.245.870

In Q2 of this year 747.610 devices of the Amsterdam based company were sold.

Q2 is a very important period of the year for the navigational market. "A lot of Europeans then buy a navigational system for use during their summer holiday", dixit Chris Jones, CEO of Canalys. "The market just keeps growing and growing. We see a constant flow of new products arriving on the market. The differences in shape, functionality and price categories also keeps increasing, and also a lot of new brands are entering the market who want a piece of TomTom's cut". But Canalys' research has shown that the market share of those smaller companies has actually decreased. The obvious conclusion then was that buyers nowadays more often than not choose a PND of one of the four market leaders.

After TomTom, there's Garmin, which occupies a solid second place when it comes to market share. A year ago it was Mio who was the runner-up, but eventhough Mio's sale figures also rose with 48%, Garmin still managed to hop over them, effectively degrading them to third place. Navman, the last one of the big four, also managed to present higher sales figures than the year before, but their overall market share lessened.

Garmin is still going full steam ahead in their efforts of dethroning TomTom. Compared to Q1 of this year, the American number one when it comes to PND's managed to eat away a bit of TomTom's market share. The shipping problems which bothered TomTom's new GO models are probably the reason for this.

Sales price

The average sales price of a PND unit remained more or less stable in the past year. Nowadays, a PND is still being sold for an average price of € 400,- (270,- UKP). This price stability is surprising, considering the increasing competition on the PND market. The most important new players on this market are Becker, Blaupunkt, Pioneer and VDO Dayton. According to Canalys, this competition is the reason why by the end of this year they expect entry models starting at € 199,- (135,- UKP). For the true hardware enthusiast or gadget freak, it's expected that the capabilities of the high-end models will also expand.

More and more PND's are shipped standard with a wide screen display, real-time traffic info and weather forecast capabilities. Most current systems now also provide entertainment possibilities which required separate devices not too long ago. Examples are the playing of music and the showing of photo's.