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GPS Business News: According to a new report by market research firm IMS Research, the role of the vehicle manufacturer in car navigation is forecast to increase.

Jack Bergquist, automotive analyst at IMS, believes that Renault’s success with its TomTom system, offered as standard on some trim levels, has demonstrated there is a large market for low-cost navigation units fitted to B and C category cars.

Consequently, IMS Research has forecast that fixed navigation will win the most revenues in the segment in the coming years, soaring to over $9 billion by 2017. Jack Bergquist further comments “The rise in navigation systems will be driven in two ways: with vehicle manufacturers offering lower cost factory-fitted systems; and with the high end of the market being served by connected systems with advanced functionality, such as live traffic information, live map updates, and online points-of-interest (PoI) databases.”

IMS Research also forecasts that global sales of connected telematics head units will grow by 20% a year for the foreseeable future.
 

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NaviGadget: NAVist III is a complete car navigation system with many entertainment features backed up by some serious hardware.

NAVist III is powered by dual processors and has an optical drive that can handle DVDs, CDs, and all sorts of media files.

If you think optical drives are too 90’s you’ll be pleased to hear that NAVist III comes with a hard disk drive that can hold all your Led Zeppelin collection and a lot more.

What’s really cool about NAVist III is that it uses a removable HDD, right next to the SD card slot, all hidden behind a 7″ screen that requires 2DIN space on your dash.

We’re not sure when it will be available.

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Tech On: The huge increase in sales of portable navigation devices (PND) has made an impact on the car navigation market, which now looks set to split into two areas: low-priced PNDs, and high-function HDD-based systems.

“PNDs just swiped the market right out from under us,” complained a management-level source at one Japanese car navigation system manufacturer. It would be no exaggeration to say that in Europe, “car navigation” means PNDs. Equipped with a 5-inch or smaller liquid crystal display (LCD) panel and Flash memory holding map data, these simple car navigation systems provide guidance via map displays.

As of 2004, the total worldwide sales of PNDs reached only several hundred thousand units annually. This jumped to over five million in 2005, and again to over 10 million the following year, surpassing the installed car navigation market in which the Japanese car navigation system manufacturers had been doing so well.

The PND market is presently driven by TomTom NV of the Netherlands, Garmin International Inc of the US and MiTac International Corp of Taiwan. Of these, the first two firms command 60% or more of the market, and together with MiTac International hold about 80%. PND demand shows no signs of slacking off and, one PND manufacturer said, “There are signs that it’s going to be a big hit in the US in 2007, following its success in Europe.”

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