Portable Navigation Devices (PND) are losing ground as worldwide usage of GPS-equipped smar phones in the coming years, according to iSuppli Corp.
After several years of strong sales growth, PNDs will continue to lead the navigation market in 2009, with 114 million sets to be in use by the end of the year, compared to 57.8 million smart phones. However, by 2014, usage of navigation-enabled smart-phones will rise to 305 million units, exceeding the 128 million PNDs that will be around by then.
| iSuppli Figure: Worldwide Forecast of PNDs and Navigation-Enabled SmartPhones in Use (Millions of Units) |
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| 2006 | 2008 | 2009 | 2011 | 2014 | ||||||
| PND | 20.5 | 86.5 | 114 | 130 | 128 | |||||
| Smart Phone | 11.3 | 39 | 57.8 | 117 | 305 | |||||
| Source: iSuppli Corp. September 2009 |
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"Previously, smartphones were not seen as a threat to the dominance
of PNDs due to mobile handsets' poor battery life, unclear pricing
structures and inferior interface," said Danny Kim, global
Location-Based Service (LBS) analyst for iSuppli.
"However, as
smart-phone design moves forward, many of these issues have been or
will be resolved, leading to increased market share for navigation
applications on smart phones."
New smart-phone models are more suitable for use with navigation
applications for a range of reasons, including the integration of GPS
functionality, better usability, larger screens, built-in connectivity
and most importantly, the flurry of applications being developed for
smart phones.
Other features boosting the smartphones' utility for
navigation include better microprocessor support, higher internal flash
memory and improved battery life.
iSuppli believes that in 2011, nearly 100 percent of all smart phones
shipped will integrate GPS functionality.
"These features will give smart phones similar feature sets as
mid-range PNDs, making them more attractive to users," Kim said.
Apps are everything
Another factor driving increased usage of smart-phone navigation is the
launch of high-profile navigation applications from TomTom and Navigon
for the iPhone.
"These new applications will make the iPhone a better match for the
PNDs, diverting attention from the portable navigation devices," Kim
said.
With TomTom's announcement last week, Apple now has eight navigation
applications for the iPhone--two off-board solutions and six on-board
counterparts. The initial reaction from iPhone users should be
encouraging to the application suppliers.
Owing to the arrival of these applications, iPhone navigation users are
expected to increase to 28 million in 2013, up from just 2 million in
2009, iSuppli predicts.
The rise and fall of the PND
The rise of smart-phone navigation represents another milestone in the
remarkable story of the PND.
The starting gun for the PND market was in 2004, when the product began
exceeding all expectations in growth and popularity and continued to so
for several years. The year 2009 marks the dividing line when sales
expansion for the PND slows as the product moves from the growth phase
to the maturity stage of its life cycle. The two major PND vendors are
expected to maintain very similar market shares in the PND space into
2013.
iSuppli forecasts that the number of TomTom and Garmin PNDs in
use--based on a three-year life span--will not significantly change
between 2009 and 2013. Any new growth in PND shipments is likely to
come from the Asia-Pacific region, where past map coverage has been
patchy but is improving. For more information on this topic, see
iSuppli's new report, entitled: Next Gen Navigation: Is It All About
Apps and Maps?