Big Growth in the European Navigation Market | GPS Lodge.com: "There has been some pretty big growth in the European GPS device market. Some sellers have seen 600% growth in sales, year over year. The question is, how long with this last. TomTom is a major entrant in the European market, while Garmin launched loads of models in the last 12 months in an effort to make major advances in the automotive market. With prices coming down, feature sets growing, and more and more people becoming familiar with GPS's, it's no wonder that the market is exploding. ABI research has released a report about the dramatic growth.

'We believe the market explosion Europe currently faces has been caused by three main factors,' says Dan Benjamin, principal analyst with ABI Research's transportation research practice. 'First, the cost of these devices have come down dramatically. Second, several vendors have been fully able to leverage the marketing and distribution channels available to them. Finally, the added feature of traffic awareness for dynamic navigation in many PNAV [personal navigation] models has made the offerings even more compelling.'


However, ABI Research warns that leading European PNAV vendors such as TomTom, Navigon, and Mitac must not rest on their laurels. Benjamin advises that 'Despite distribution deals with automakers to offer PNAV models on some new car models, vehicle manufacturers will"