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GPS smart phone shipments overtake PNDs in EMEA
- EMEA PND volumes shrink, other regions enjoy unit growth as
prices fall
Reading (UK) - Wednesday, 5 November 2008
For immediate release
- EMEA shipments of PNDs in Q3 2008 fell to 4.3 million, from
4.8 million in Q2
- EMEA shipments of smart phones with integrated GPS more than
doubled from Q2, to hit 10.4 million
- At 70%, EMEA has a higher proportion of smart phones with
GPS built in than any other region
- Year-on-year, global PND shipments rose 14%
- 49% year-on-year growth in North America compensated for a
6% decline in EMEA
- Garmin re-took the global PND market lead from TomTom, with
Mio retaining third place
Highlights from the Canalys Q3 2008 research
Based on its latest research, Canalys estimates that global
shipments of PNDs (Portable Navigation Devices) in Q3 2008 rose 14%
year-on-year, from 7.7 million to 8.8 million units, with North
America and Asia Pacific still seeing good volume growth, of 49% and
25% respectively. But shipments in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and
Africa) were down 6% in the same period. Meanwhile, shipments of
smart phones with built-in GPS soared in EMEA, rising from 4.7
million last quarter to 10.4 million in Q3.
“Today, the volume of turn-by-turn navigation solution licences
being shipped and activated for smart phones in EMEA is around 11%
of the GPS smart phone total,” said Chris Jones, Canalys VP and
principal analyst, “But with GPS being built into the majority of
smart phones, and users increasingly being given maps on their phone
by default, and multiple reasons to use them, the threat to PND
vendors is rising quickly. The PND may give a better in-car user
experience today, but smart phone vendors are learning and releasing
new devices and software all the time. Nokia is already the third
largest provider of mobile navigation solutions across all platforms
in EMEA, behind TomTom and only narrowly behind Garmin.”
The risk to PND vendors is likely to rise further as the economic
situation forces more consumers to take a hard look at their
discretionary purchases. “We can’t live without our mobile phones,
and if they have satellite navigation built in it is inevitable that
this will stop some from buying a PND. Those who have not yet bought
their first PND are likely to be more ‘occasional’ sat-nav users for
whom a phone-based solution will usually be good enough. Existing
PND owners will need to be given even better reasons to upgrade than
were needed before,” added Canalys analyst Caroline Chow. “The key
to upgrading such users may be delivering genuinely useful,
real-time location-specific data, such as traffic information and
fuel prices, but the leading smart phone vendors are better
positioned, in terms of having a base of users already paying for
services on connected devices, and of course the operator
relationships, to capitalise on this need. PND vendors should not
underestimate the challenges of moving over to a connected device
business model.”
In the global PND market in Q3, Garmin re-took the lead it
narrowly lost to TomTom in Q2. Shipments of just over 3 million PNDs
gave it 35% market share, ahead of TomTom’s 29%. Mio rounded out the
top three with a 9% share of the market (including its devices
branded as Navman). Consolidation and price-cutting continued to
take their toll on the industry, with smaller vendors finding it
increasingly difficult to compete. Total market value declined 21%
year-on-year, despite the 14% rise in units shipped. The share of
the market taken by the top three vendors continues to rise, with
the absolute volume of shipments of all other PND vendors falling to
their lowest level since Q2 2007.
The new edition of Canalys’ smart phone and mobile navigation
trends report is now available. It investigates the key global
market trends, looks at regional differences and the performance of
the leading hardware and software vendors, emerging technologies,
user behaviour and other factors to deliver a broad picture of the
state of the market and its direction. This unique work, now in its
seventh successful year, is specifically designed to help companies
formulate their strategies in this fast changing environment.
About the Canalys services
The shipment estimates discussed in this release come from the
market-leading Canalys Smart Mobile Device Analysis and Mobile
Navigation Analysis services. Canalys’ globally consistent market
segmentations and definitions are used by vendors the world over to
provide a coherent view of the total market for smart phones and
mobile navigation solutions. Canalys offers services looking at the
navigation and smart phone markets by country in APAC, North and
Latin America and EMEA, as well as providing global market overviews
and survey-based analysis of consumer and enterprise attitudes and
preferences toward mobile applications, devices and services.
About Canalys
Canalys specialises in delivering high quality market data,
analysis and advice to the world’s leading technology vendors. It is
recognised as a key provider of continuous advisory services and
confidential custom projects for marketing managers and strategists
within blue-chip IT, telecoms, navigation and consumer electronics
companies. It has unrivalled expertise in routes to market for all
kinds of high technology products and services in the consumer, SMB
and large enterprise segments, and provides worldwide market data
and trends analysis.
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