A new research report from the analysis firm Berg Insight forecasts that shipments of handset based personal navigation solutions in Europe and the US will reach 12 million units by 2009. The year 2005 marked the first successful marriage of cellular and navigation technologies, resulting in shipments of around 1 million on-board and off-board systems, mainly in the fourth quarter. Supported by the phenomenal growth recorded in the PND segment, handset based personal navigation solutions are expected to grow by 86 percent year-on-year.
“We are very optimistic about the market potential for mobile personal navigation services”, says Johan Fagerberg, senior analyst, Berg Insight. “There is already a wide range of navigation solutions available for both smartphones and Java-enabled handsets. Technologies like A-GPS, Indoor-GPS and Galileo will soon enable handset manufacturers to include satellite positioning in mass-market models for the European market. This will radically improve the market conditions for navigation and all other location-based services.”
Jentro, Route66 and TomTom were the top three providers of handset based personal navigation solutions during 2005. Thanks to a successful final quarter on the German market, Jentro was able to snatch the top spot with its off-board solution for Java-handsets. Meanwhile Route66 and TomTom reinforced their market positions with on-board solutions for Symbian OS smartphones.
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