A recent study on the PND market by IMS Research has arrived at the following conclusions:
- 2009: Shipments of PNDs to new users will be down as much as 30% in some regions, with a difficult first half of the year.
- New vs Replacement: The medium term market will recover, buoyed by replacement devices, which are set to represent a significant proportion of the market over the forecast period.
- Competing In-Car Solutions: The total in-car navigation installed base will exceed 50% in all advanced markets by 2014.
- GPS Chip Design: Manufacturers are now investigating some of the more cost effective design techniques, such as SoC, combo-chip and embedded GPS.
- Role of Operators: Cellular operators/MVNOs will play a significant role in the future of PNDs.
- ASPs: In an attempt to prevent further margin decreases, leading manufacturers are forecast to produce fewer low end devices, shifting their product mix towards high-end feature sets.
- Other Devices: Cellular still represents the biggest threat to PNDs, eating up a significant portion of the available in-car navigation market. GPS will become widespread in other portable devices, but not necessarily for navigation.
- Hybrid PNDs: factory fitted PNDs will represent an increasing share of manufacturer’s revenues over the short-to-medium term.
