NEWSBRIEFS –LBS

Sep 2008 | Comments Off

INDUSTRY | LBS | GPS | GIS | REMOTE SENSING | GALILEO UPDATE

US PND market doubles in Q2

Shipments of portable navigation devices (PNDs) in the United States almost doubled in the second quarter (Q2) of this year at 3.7 million units, compared to the 2.8 million units in Q2 2007, but prices are still dropping, according to market research firm Canalys. At this time last year, unit volume shipments were depressed following an inventory buildup resulting from extremely high sales into the channel in the final quarter. While shipments have grown, Canalys estimates that average selling prices have dropped approximately 40 percent drop year over year. Canalys estimates that Garmin remained the US market leader with 47% share, up 4% on its Q1 position, but down slightly on the 50% it had a year ago. TomTom, in second, saw year-on-year growth substantially above the market average, almost trebling its shipments, and giving it a share of 25%. Despite this high growth, this was down on the 28% it had in Q1, meaning that Garmin increased its lead by several percentage points sequentially. Magellan retained its third place with a reduced 11% share. These three vendors have consistently taken more than 80% of the market for several quarters. Outside of the top three, several vendors posted high year-onyear growth, notably Mio Technology, Navigon and Nextar, albeit on much lower volumes. www.canalys.com

MapmyIndia’s GPS Navigator launched in Kerala

MapmyIndia announced the launch of their “sophisticated” all India GPS device, MapmyIndia Navigator, in Kerala. Rajesh Mehta, Vice President, CE Info Systems (P) Limited, promoters of MapmyIndia, said with this new in-car GPS navigation device, “travel anywhere in Kerala or India will become comfortable, easy and secure.” www.business-standard.com

Palm unveils Treo Pro to Battle iPhone and BlackBerry

After leaking a presentation of its newest smartphone, Palm Inc unveiled Treo Pro, the handset described by the company as “the best looking Palm ever.” Palm developed the Treo Pro in order to keep the pace with rival producers such as Research In Motion’s BlackBerry and Apple Inc.’s iPhone. www.efluxmedia.com

Nokia takes Navigation to the next level with Nokia 6210 navigator

Nokia has introduced Nokia 6210 Navigator in India, first GPSenabled mobile device with an integrated in-map compass for pedestrian guidance. It comes with Nokia Maps 2.0 and offers real-time voice and visual turn by turn guidance using inbuilt GPS support, optimized one-box map search, 2D/3D and night mode map views, opportunity to tag and share your favourite locations, save and share routes amongst many other interesting features. It comes pre-loaded with maps of 8 cities in India and a 6 months navigation bundle.

SatNav ties up with RT Outsourcing

SatNav Technologies, company in Navigation and GPS Technology in India has tied-up with RT Outsourcing as their service partners. RT Outsourcing will serve the SatNav customers who own company’s GPS Devices. RT outsourcing is an end – to – end warranty service provider with a presence across several dozen locations in India. With 3500+ staff strength, it is an ISO-9001 company with its head office in Okhla, New Delhi. The company has a state-of-the-art Call Centre and Technical Support Centres in New Delhi and Noida (India). http://news.moneycontrol.com

LG unveils 8 megapixel phone with GPS

LG has announced the launch of the LG KC910 touch screen handset. This slim touch camera phone claims to be the successor to the LG Viewty. It comes with an 8MP auto-focus camera that uses Schneider-Kreuznach optics and has a Xenon flash; it’s able to record video with VGA (30fps), QVGA (120fps) quality, ISO sensitivity of up to 1600. The phone is fully equipped with Dolby sound, DivX and XviD for video playback, built-in GPS, a geotagging feature for photos, multiple codec support and much more. http://infotech.indiatimes.com

TomTom goes full gear with connected services in Europe

At the IFA trade show in Berlin, TomTom unveiled a line of connected Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs) for the European market. The range of “TomTom GO x40 LIVE” (three models: GO 540, 740, 940) will start at €349 and the “LIVE” service subscription will cost €9.95 per month. These models will be available in Germany, UK, France, Netherlands and Switzerland during the autumn.

Loopt switch from Tele Atlas to Navteq for Verizon Wireless

Navteq has said Loopt, a developer of location-based social networking applications, is now using its map data. Loopt was initially launched in 2006 and has been using Tele Atlas map data until now. Tele Atlas and Navteq are aggressively competing to seduce mobile LBS start-ups which might generate tomorrow an important source of revenue – today mobile LBS applications account only for a few percents in Tele Atlas and Navteq revenue and most of it is generated from navigation applications .www.gpsbusineesnews.com

Panasonic HDD Navigation System

Panasonic introduced its latest HDD Navigation system, dubbed CN-HW830D. Apart from guiding you with directions this Navigation system connects to the iPod and can play anything from
an Audio CD to a DVD. This 2 din system features an 800 × 480 pixels 7 inch touchscreen, SDHC card slot, Bluetooth connectivity and a TV tuner. It bundles up a GPS with 3D display of the routes.www.techgadgets.in