May 7th, 2009
Navigon gets priced out of the North American PND market
It seemed that the Personal Navigation Device (PND) market was hot last year and several companies were rolling out great products. One of the best line of products I saw and mentioned in our 2008 Holiday Guide was from Navigon. They have some amazing graphics on their PND units that even showed you highway lanes and exit signs as you traveled. Unfortunately, it looks like Navigon has decided to pull out of the North American market.
They made some very high quality products, but that high quality and full functionality came with a price. As we saw last year, people were flocking to buy these PND units for their cars. However, many consumers are looking for the low price units and Navigon specialized in functionality more than low price. They acknowledged that they really couldn’t compete with the aggressive pricing and are focusing on OEM/automotive solutions rather than the PND market. As more and more people start to buy smartphones with integrated GPS receivers I wonder if the PND market will continue to shrink from mobile phone usage for navigation.
Matthew Miller is an avid mobile device enthusiast who works during the day as a professional naval architect in Seattle. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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