Garmin Update

In case you missed it Garmin was out with results this week... TomTom as well, but I'll try to get to them later:

In addition to the official slides and announcement here are some random tidbits from the Q&A session of the analyst call for Garmin from the call transcripts
- 2007 sales up 80% over 2006
- Auto category sales (Garmin includes PNDs in this category) are now nearly 75% of the company’s sales versus 61% a year ago… in other words sales of Nuvi’s are on fire.
- Margin was down but better than internal estimates, in part due to higher than expected geographic mix, ie more sales in the U.S. where margin is better.
- Speculation that overall PND penetration rate could be in broad range of 20-50%
- Expect 20-25% market share in Europe
- Expect additional 20% price reduction in 2008, offset partially by 10% reduction in component costs, with low hanging fruit in components being display and Flash memory

Nuvifone
- Doesn’t expect Nuvifone to cannibalize PND sales
- No carrier agreements for Nuvifone, they’re actively having many discussions, and would like as many carriers as possible
- Expect to use non Garmin manufacturing facility for the device
- Expect Nuvifone margins to be roughly the same or slightly lower than current PND margins