El Segundo, Calif. — The personal navigation device (PND) will no longer dominate the GPS market, according to a study by iSuppli that said PND share will decline to 35 percent of the global GPS market by 2010 and to only a quarter of the market by 2013.
Last year, PNDs accounted for about half of all navigation device shipments worldwide, said iSuppli, with the remainder in in-dash car units, smartphones and cellphones.
By 2011, cellphones will overtake PNDs for the first time, with cellphones capturing 36 percent of the global navigation market and PNDs garnering only 30 percent, it said.
“The PND market is ending its fast-growth phase and moving into a stage of maturity,” said principal analyst Richard Robinson. “After achieving growth of 123.7 percent in 2007, global PND unit shipment increases will slow to 43 percent in 2008 and to 23.5 percent in 2009.”
Conversely, global shipments of cellphones with GPS will climb by 91.4 percent in 2008 and 70.6 percent in 2009. Shipments of smartphones with GPS will increase by 66 percent in 2008 and 51.6 percent in 2009.
PNDs will still generate significant sales, but the market will consolidate. “Strong PND price erosion witnessed in 2007 and 2008 will lead to consolidation in the sector in 2008 and 2009, with smaller vendors exiting the market because they will be unable to achieve the volumes and economies of scale needed to operate profitably at these price points,” Robinson said.
Changes will also occur in GPS in new cars as car makers seek to drive down the cost of in-dash GPS. They are likely to turn away from traditional tier-one GPS suppliers by 2012 “potentially opening up the market to … manufacturers such as Garmin and TomTom, or even handset makers like Nokia and Samsung,” Robinson said.
