GPS Impacts to the Portable Device Market: An Update

I attended a webinar today conducted by Park Associates on how GPS is influencing the portable device market and specifically the personal navigation device (PND) market. As we are constantly being asked how big any particular segment of the geospatial and LBS martkets are, I wanted to share some of their insights with you:

Key statistics
1. By 2012, more than 800 million portable devices will feature GPS
2. 29% of the owners of PND’s recall that the initial trigger to buy was due to seeing another family member’s usage.
3. 39% of the owners of PND’s recall that the initial trigger to buy was due to seeing an advertised sales event
4. Only 4.5% of U.S. households believe their mobile phones are GPS enabled.

Market Share for PND’s
Garmin: 42%
TomTom: 33%
All others: 25% (including Mio, Sony, Magellan, Dash, etc.)

Vertical Integration is helping to drive down cost of PND. As exemplified by:
1. TomTom’s purchase of Tele Atlas for $3 Billion
2. Nokia’s purchase of NAVTEQ for $8.1 Billion
3. Broadcom’s purchase of GlobalLocate (GPS chipsets)
4. Mio’s purchase of Navman
5. Garmin’s acquisition of regional distributors in Europe and Oceania

iPhone with 3G Experienced Great success:
1. 1 Million iPhones were bought within first 3 days
2. Estimate of 4 million through Q3 2008

In 2007 more than 110 million units of smartphones were shipped
1. GPS attach rate was estimated at 26%

Map Content Innovations are Driving Adoption
1. 3D experience - a life-like driving experience is appearling bolsted by content suppliers like Intermap 3dvu, and Tele Atlas
2. Historical Speed data is helping drivers determine travel times on specific road segments supported by suppliers like INRIX, NAVTEQ, and Tele Atlas

The Future
1. In the 2009-2011 time frame we are likely to see more personalization to include local search by personal preferences, smart travel updates, and connected PNDs to smartphones
2. Beyone the 2011 we are likely to see valued-added personal services such as location-based commerce and safety surveillance.