Boston, MA - September 17, 2009 – Worldwide personal navigation device (PND) shipments almost doubled in Q2-09 to 8.0M, in a market growth recovery which largely reflects the aftereffects of an extremely poor Q1-09, as PND vendors reduced inventory, according to the Strategy Analytics Navigation and Location Opportunities service. This report, “PND Market Tracker,” indicates that PND market optimism is to be found in the Q2-09 metrics; and it questions industry speculation that the PND market will be very swiftly subsumed by navigation on smartphones.
Joanne Blight, Navigation Director at Strategy Analytics, said, "Certainly we expect very strong growth for navigation-enabled smartphones, but we think there has been far too much hype around the PND market being dead. In the short term, PNDs still offer product advantages over smartphone solutions, particularly in the automotive market and in PND feature bundling."
John Canali, Navigation Analyst at Strategy Analytics, added, "Connected PND and smartphone navigation apps are emerging quickly. Recent product launches include TomTom, Garmin, ALK and Navigon. Monetization of connected navigation presents major price model and product positioning challenges and this will result in segmented product opportunities."