Content is king in battle
THE MARKET FOR personal navigation devices is set to come into its own as people increasingly rely on those pocket-sized devices to get them from A to B.
US-based research house Gartner estimates that the market for global positioning system (GPS) devices worldwide will grow at 28%/year over the next four years, with 40% of US and European consumers wanting a navigation device in their next vehicle. Richard Fearon, CEO of Avnic Holdings (which represents the Garmin and Garmap brands in Southern Africa), says the basic mapping technology is well on the way to being commoditised. That’s because any number of devices – from cellphones to watches – are being sold with built-in GPSs.
For the uninitiated, GPS systems use a series of satellites – owned and controlled by the US government – to allow you to pinpoint your location. The device finds the signal from three or more of the satellites and uses that information to work out exactly where you are. It provides a set of co-ordinates and the device then uses maps to show you where you are and looks up where you want to go.
The challenge facing companies such as Garmin – market leader in the US – and TomTom, the market leader in Europe, is how to set their products apart from the rest of the market, where they’re unable to compete on price with cheaper offerings from Asian brands and cellphones that come with the technology built in.
Fearon says that the two areas where the larger brands can set themselves apart is in additional content. He identifies the area of additional content as one of the most important for users of such devices.
That kind of content is typically known as points of interest, a set of information laid on to the map that provides the user with guides to restaurants, petrol stations and even the location of traffic cameras.
All the basic maps have a level of content on them but Fearon contends there’s still significant value in providing more comprehensive information, such as detailed restaurant reviews and contact details for different stores and restaurants.
The other aspect that sets the larger brands apart is the creation of a community around the brand. TomTom is relying heavily on the participation of its users as it attempts to carve a unique space for its products in the market.
RJ van Spaandonk, head of the TomTom distributor in SA, says the Map Share technology it’s currently building into its devices will allow users to note changes to the maps and share those changes through the Internet.
If it works, it would make the process of eliminating errors on maps easier and, more importantly, faster. Van Spaandonk says the success of websites such as WikiPedia is an example of sites where community involvement in content creation has been a spectacular success.
“The system also has the ability to track individual routes taken by motorists and once it has a sufficient amount of data it would be able to identify where traffic congestion typically occurs and route motorists around it.
That type of intelligent routing is only possible with community involvement and everyone benefits from contributing to the system.”
Fearon is a little more cautious about tapping the community for intelligence. He warns that if you’re relying on the community for much of the content on your system then there needs to be something in place to compensate those users and that’s not yet ready.
While both Van Spaandonk and Fearon believe that basic map data is really a commodity, Ray Wilkinson, CEO of Map-IT (which provides mapping data to almost every navigation system sold in SA), says the fact that there are relatively few suppliers of mapping data – the global market is dominated by two or three companies – will prevent that from happening.
However, for mapping pro-viders, the ever-changing nature of urban development makes it difficult for them to move too far beyond their core focus on map data, leaving manufacturers the room to create the additional services and information that users are clamouring for.
Finweek
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