MobiNav

Source : GpsBusinessNews 

According to figures given today to GPS business News by market research firm GFK, 2.45 million Personal Navigation Devices (PND) should be sold in France in 2007 against 1.23 million in 2006. The key reason to this growth is the falling price of such devices. Between 2005 and 2006 the average selling price fell from €493 to €370, a 25% decrease. The trend is continued in 2007: half of the market is now made by devices below the €200 price point.

In 2008 GFK expects a 37% volume increase with an estimated 3.35 million PNDs to be sold. Nothing to complain about, but previous estimates from GFK used to be more optimistic. “Earlier this year my forecast for 2008 was around 4 million units”, said Julien Jolivet, Business Group Manager at GFK France. “The summer was very good but the back to school period (September) was not what we expected, so we decided to decrease our estimates for 2008. However this is a pretty normal curve for consumer electronics products, nothing to worry about”.

In 2007 the specialized distribution (FNAC and others) has lost market share to the big food chains (Carrefour, Auchan, etc…) and e-commerce is gaining traction. “Internet has become a real distribution channel with around 15% of the PND sales”, explained Julien Jolivet. “Major PND manufacturers have now dedicated sales force for this segment”.

In France TomTom remains a strong market leader: in October the top 5 best selling PNDs were all TomTom products as shown by the GFK/www.gpsandco.com monthly tracker.

Phones and Smartphones on a strong growth
While PNDs are the biggest category by far, the navigation market is also disputed by mobiles phones. PNDs are slowly but consistently losing market share: PDA, Smartphones and cell phones were representing 12% of GPS devices in 2006, 14% in 2007 and should be 20% in 2008, estimates GFK.

GPS-enabled Smartphones should grow from 180,000 units in 2007 to 400,000 pieces in 2008 and GPS-mobile phones from 110,000 to 360,000 (For GFK a “Smartphone” includes a touch screen or a keyboard; for example the Nokia N95 falls under the “mobile phone” category).

On the French market GFK forecasts that 42% of Smartphones will be GPS-capable in 2008, against only 1.5% of “mobile phones”, leaving strong room for growth in this area.