Taiwan makers dominate European GPS navigation market

Taiwan companies have played a key role in Europe's GPS personal navigation device (PND) market, including supplying products to the No. 1 brand in the region and ranking as the No. 2 and No. 3 brands in the market.

TomTom, the No. 1 GPS device brand in Europe, currently contracts Taiwan's Inventec Appliances Corp. to supply PND models and has added Quanta Computer Inc., a leading contract notebook PC supplier in Taiwan, to its supplier list.

Another two major Taiwanese GPS device makers, Garmin Corp. (Garmin brand) and MiTAC International Corp. (Mio), are currently the No. 2 and No. 3 brands in Europe.

Statistics compiled by Canalys, a marketing channel survey company in Europe, showed that TomTom maintained its No. 1 position in the European GPS navigation device market in the second quarter by selling 747.600 units, up 189% from about 258,500 units in the same period of 2005 and translating into a market share of 30.5%, up from 20.8%.

Garmin sold about 408,700 units in the second quarter, shooting up 298.6% from the same period of last year and equivalent to a market share of 16.7%. Mio sold about 233,000 units during the period, up 48% from 157,500 units and for a market share of 9.5%, down from 12.6%. In general, almost all GPS navigation devices sold in Europe are made by Taiwan companies.

A total of 2.44 million GPS navigation devices were sold in the second quarter in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, up 96.6% from the same period of last year. Among the top-five brands in the region, only TomTom and Garmin enjoyed saw their sales volume grow at a faster pace than the overall regional sales

Quanta recently said its cooperation ties with TomTom are getting closer, from OEM to ODM and EMS (electronics manufacturing services).

Source & copyright: CENS