Personal Navigation Devices have particularly gained wide acceptance in the European and American market. The products are portable devices that have GPS capabilities which also include digital maps that are often used for vehicle navigation and offer considerable advantages since they are more user-centric than vehicle-centric (Kerstin, Christof & Marko, 2006). According to BERG Insight (n.d.), the sales continue to grow despite the economic slowdown with sales in Europe reaching up to 20 million in shipments while North America is also making purchases of up to 17 million in the same year. The increased popularity of the device has led to many players in the market who have created opportunities for good pricing and high quality which has been an advantage to the PND consumers.
With the increased growth during the 2007 to 2009 period, there emerged many players in the PND market. BERG Insight (n.d.) reports that the European and American market was characterized by up to 100 providers of the device. This has reinforced the quality and technology that is used in the manufacture of the products (Cusumano, Iyer & Venkatraman, 2014). Companies interested in the manufacture of navigation devices were primarily from the technology industry and were providers of GPS service navigation software and some companies had a background of car infotainment services. The device quality, therefore, changed over time from the provision of navigation systems to include also travel utilities, external application support, hands-free systems, multimedia players and even games.
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The primary advantage that large manufacturers of PND devices had over the rest of the competition is the ability to access the technologies and features that consumers demanded in-house. Some of the major vendors of the PNDs include companies such as Garmin, Tomtom, Mio Technology and Magellan who dominated the industry, especially in its boom years. However, other companies were also able to access technologies such as navigation software from other providers such as Intrinsync Software Company, deCarta, Elektrobit Corporation and the like (Maharaj, 2011). The availability of such developers has increased the occurrence of PNDs in the market.
The primary drivers for winning in the PND market involved the ability to provide high quality and performance devices at low costs. With many companies entering the PND market, there was increased competition which led to a saturation of the market. Despite this, the sales in the PND devices faced a decline only with the introduction of mobile phones that could provide similar services. Since then there has been a notable removal of the PND’s from the market with an increased focus on mobile phones that offer similar technologies with added advantages in that a phone has more uses than just navigation. This raises concerns on the market implication for vendors who may have to compete with the smartphone industry as a whole.
Some of the future predictions concerning the PND market are that the device manufacturers will continue to exit the market. According to BERG Insight (n.d.), it is likely that the market will face further mergers and exits. PND vendors are therefore more focused on service products as the device market continues to become too hostile for the manufacturers (Cusumano, Iyer & Venkatraman, 2014). In Europe, the availability of GPS service in handsets may be the reason behind a decreased sale of the devices (Brudtkuhl, 2007). The future, therefore, holds that the mobile companies might improve their navigation service provision which is bound to close the market gap thereby ousting the personal navigation device market entirely.
References
BERG Insight. (n.d.) Personal Navigation Devices. BERG Insight . LBS Research Series. Retrieved from, http://www.berginsight.com/ReportPDF/ProductSheet/bi-pnd-ps.pdf
Brudtkuhl, A. (2007, June 7). The Future of Personal Navigation Devices. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from, https://www.insightcommunity.com/case.php?iid=1040
Cusumano, M., Iyer, B. & Venkatraman, N. (eds.). Software Business: Third International Conference, ICSOB 2012, Cambridge, MA, USA, June 18-20, 2012, Proceedings. London, Springer.
Kerstin L., Christof, P. & Marko, W. (eds.). (2006). Embedded Security in Cars: Securing Current and Future Automotive IT Applications. New York, Springer.
Maharaj, N. (2011 July 4). A loss of Direction: Rise and Fall of Personal Navigation Systems. Value Line. Retrieved from, http://www.valueline.com/Stocks/Commentaries/A_Loss_of_Direction__The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Personal_Navigation_Devices.aspx#.WDUHt9J97hk
