Despite big competition in the market for portable navigation systems, there are only three brands that really matter. This is written in a report by marketing research bureau iSuppli. These three parties are good for around 82% of the total Personal Navigation Device sales.TomTom, with it’s market share of 37%, is the world’s largest PND manufacturer, followed at a distance by Garmin, which holds market share of 25%. The number three is MiTAC, in our regions known as Mio (Tech), with a share of 20% of all the PND sales in the world. The trio’s position seems to strengthen continuously.
Without exception, the ‘Big Three’ all do very well on their home market. Garmin is market leader in North America, while MiTAC holds the ropes in Asia. TomTom is the biggest in Europe, and is also market leader in Australia.
Booming Business
According to iSuppli, the market for PND’s will continue to be a ‘booming business’ in the upcoming years. It’s expected that the number of systems sold by 2013 will triple. In 2006, 19.8 million portable navigation systems were sold. This prognosis makes iSuppli even more optimistic than Gartner Dataquest research bureau, which expects 60 million PND’s sold by 2013, as well as 12 million built-in systems.The explosive growth of PND’s has been going on for a few years now, but the researchers claim the end is nowhere in sight just yet. TomTom has sold more than 10 million PND’s to date, it's not yet three years since the company introduced it’s first PND, the GO Classic. In Europe, the region of the world where most PND’s are used, less than 15% of all motorists currently use a talking road map, so there’s still a lot of room left to grow.
Strengthen
Of course all three competitors are not sitting still, they are all currently busy strengthening their positions, and each has its own methods for achieving that. Garmin for example concentrates on developing new navigational systems at a high pace: currently, the nüvi product range consists of fifteen different models. There is something for everybody: from entry level PND’s to wide screen PND’s with lots of accessories. Apart from the nüvi range, Garmin also manufactures the Streetpilot range, as well as the zümo range for motorcycles.With a market share of almost 50% in North America, Garmin holds the fort in America. In Europe however, the company is experiencing difficulties keeping their 13% of market share. The number of Garmin systems sold is still rising though, with the help of some heavy marketing campaigns. Garmin is currently very busy expanding their production capacity, and will open a third factory this year in Asia.
Asia
TomTom owns more than half of the European market. In the past few years, the Dutch company has managed to expand their position in North America to greater than 25%. With a lot of marketing force, TomTom is currently attempting to gain an even larger percentage of the American market, and by now TomTom systems are available in many thousands of stores in the United States. But in America, as well as in Europe TomTom don’t expect their market share to make any large leaps anymore, and that’s why the company has set it’s mind on conquering the Asian market.Yesterday Marina Wyatt, financial director for TomTom presented their plans for Asia. Last month, the ONE was introduced in Taiwan, marking the company's first steps in Asia. TomTom is specifically aiming at growing in China and India in order to become bigger on the Asian continent. In these countries there are currently still not too many cars around, but a large growth in this area is also expected, especially because the necessary infrastructure is also continuously improving. The use of GPS systems in Asia is still a much smaller market than it is in Europe though. In Taiwan for example, only 4% of the cars contain a navigation system. When this percentage climbs up to the European level (+/- 15%), about one million PND’s will be sold per year in Taiwan. In short, there’s still an enormous potential left in Asia.
Takeover
The number three on the list of large PND sellers is MiTAC. This Taiwanese company has a market share of 20%, which is not that much less than Garmin. This year, MiTAC has bought around 9% of market share by taking over Navman from Brunswick for an estimated $16 million. Combined with the 9% the Mio brand already had, this has assured MiTAC it’s spot among the elite of PND manufacturers.MiTAC is the number one in the Asian market. The position in Europe still has to improve though, and for this purpose, both the Mio and Navman brands will be used. Currently, there are no plans to drop one of the two brands. The available marketing budgets for Mio as well as Navman are considerably lower than for TomTom and Garmin. Mio and Navman’s power lies in the production of high-quality systems at a low price. For this reason, Mio has only recently released some new models which they hope will earn them a larger market share.
Fridge
All in all, the cookie seems to have been divided up by now. The three big boys rule the market, and it will be very hard for competitors to get a foothold in this marketplace, since entering this arena as a newcomer now seems to be an impossible task. This was one of the reasons why Philips last year decided ultimately not to introduce their already announced PND’s, and to not enter the PND market at all. Also other electronics giants like Sony and JVC have at best downsized their PND market expectation, and at worst put them into the refrigerator entirely.The battle for the PND market is still continuing, but only a limited amount of serious players are competing. Hopefully the consumer will be able to keep picking the fruits of this battle, with the release of ever more innovative and economical systems.
