Navx

The growth of the connected PND market

Connected PNDs are now entering the navigation market, driven by TomTom's product line. Following their high-range products (740 and 940), the Dutch company recently introduced a mid-range TomTom XL priced at 220 euros.

It makes no doubt that the PND market will soon be split in two: on one side, cheap devices with basic functionalities, on the other side mid-high range devices loaded with connected services (e.g. live gas prices, Internet search, traffic, park space availability, etc). PND manufacturers will generate extra revenues from their connected devices through subscriptions.

So, how will the market grow ? Based on forecast published by Berg Insight, a market research company, and on our own analysis, we estimate there will be 560 000 connected devices in Europe by end 2009, and 5 millions by end 2010.

 

Connected PNDs

After the boom of Personal Navigation Devices (PND) from 2004 to 2008, we have been expecting "Connected PNDs" to revive the category and bring innovative services. So, where do we stand today ?

Connected PNDs are navigation devices able to receive dynamic information, mostly through an integrated SIM card with a GPRS/3G connection.

Typical examples of dynamic information are gas prices, traffic and incident information, location of mobile speedcams, parking space availability, weather information, movie times, Internet search, etc.

We reviewed the market and listed the devices available or about to be, and there are plenty, from both big names and small start-ups :

Now that TomTom has showed the way with both mid-range and high-range connected devices, we expect other big names to follow. In a future article, we will try to estimate the market size.

NAVX teams up with WCITIES

In an effort to help travelers everywhere, NAVX and WCITIES have teamed up to distribute WCITIES guides for 100 destinations across North America, Europe and Asia via NAVX’s geo-localized content store and social community website.

WCITIES owns an exciting database of content: it has many of the world's most popular locations, including thousands of hotels, restaurants and bars, as well as describing the popular sights and nightlife for each destination.

Travelers will be able to purchase and download the city guides to any type of GPS, so that they have information at their fingertips while on the road.

 

NAVX at Mobile World Congress

From Monday 16th to Thursday 19th, NAVX will be demonstrating its innovative location-based services: real-time geolocalized information, user-generated content, community management, mobile applications.

Come and visit us: our booth is located within the TeleAtlas space, Hall 8, C118.

We expect the MWC 2009 to be packed with news. In particular, we will carefully look at Garmin's Nuvifones, how Microsoft and Blackberry take up the challenge against the iPhone, which mobile social networks get traction...

NAVX interviewed by GPSBusinessNews

We recently had the pleasure to share our respective visions of the market with Ludovic Privat, co-founder and editor of GPSBusinessNews. Where is the market heading ? Are connected devices going to make any significant impact in 2009 ? Is geocontextual advertising ripe for growth ? How is the LBS value chain transforming ? That was indeed a good brainstorming session !

It was also an opportunity to show him what we are cooking in our labs, and to do a nice interview (here).

Find and report cheap gas stations with NAVX

 NAVX recently launched “Essence Eco”, its Gas Price application for iPhone. Available in French on iTunes’ App Store, this innovative service allows users to locate the cheapest Gas Stations around them. The service also offers the easiest way for the community of users to update prices and share them: by simply taking a picture of the gas price panel in front of the gas station !

 

NAVX application is indeed the first and unique service allowing users to collaborate on gas prices directly from their iPhone. We receive hundreds of pictures everyday, which our Content Management team treats immediately to update our database of gas prices. This is crowdsourcing applied to dynamic geolocalized content.

In a few days, our service entered the Top 5 most downloaded applications on the App Store, demonstrating the interest for such a collaborative tool.

 

        The “Essence Eco” application is free and can be downloaded directly from iTunes’ App Store and will soon be available in other European countries.

Now plug & play with Garmin !

NAVX  released today the new version of its software, allowing to automatically synchronize GPS devices with its rich database of content (speedcams, gas prices, tourist guides, etc). While our competitors provide data files that the end-user needs to manually drag and drop at the right place in their GPS, NAVX provides a no-hassle plug & play service: our NAVX Sync software manages the entire process.

Among other features, the key novelty is that the new software is now compatible with Garmin. Already compatible with TomTom and Magellan, NAVX Sync covers three major brands.

Note that for the other brands, manual download works perfectly. And stay tuned: we'll soon add more brands to our automatic download !

Navx is on iPhone and on iPod Touch!

Navx helps you to find the most reliable locations on the move. Navx recommends the best nearby spots.

Looking for delicious Sushi restaurants, Irish pubs of the city, gas stations, hot night clubs, fast-food to eat? Search for businesses near you?

Navx is the iphone built-in solution! Just tap quick links to find the place!
Navx also allows fast bookmarking, spots sharing with your friends and easy itinerary to join the place. That's cool!!

Navx on the iPhone is fully integrated with Navx website (www.navx.com), What you do on your iPhone appears immediately on the website and vice-versa.

The application is Free and available in French and English.
Help us to improve our iPhone Application post your reviews on iTunes.

The team

Meet Navx at the Canalys Navigation Forum

Navx will attend the Canalys Navigation Forum in Budapest from the 8th – 10th of September ! The forum will assemble the leading market players (see the list of confirmed attendees here) where topical market issues will be discussed. Make sure you don't miss the  presentation on Tuesday- 9th September "Get connected: what role will dynamic content and location-based information take in 2009?" to meet Navx :)

Join the France Tour 2008 with NAVX !

 

Navx created for you the map of the France Tour 2008! You can see all the villages the cyclists are crossing, all the starting points, sprints, finish points, feed zones, Mountain Passes, Climb Summit & Hills...everything you want to know about this legendary Tour.

On Navx you can discover for free 171 points of interest about the Tour, including traces of all stages !!!

Here is the famous Stage 17 with the finishing at L'Alpe d'Huez !

You can even synchronise your GPS with Navx so that you can join the Tour!

Isn't it great?