Tid Bits from TeleAtlas 2007 Full Year Results

It’s all driven by the PND market for TeleAtlas right now…

Overall revenue increased 17%

• Six of the eight leading portable navigation device providers worldwide use Tele Atlas maps.

• PND growth 35% - 14.7 Million map units (bundled with PND sale).

• Map units in PND average selling price was just over 11 euro

• America’s PND revenue grew 136% year over year

• Wireless grew 66% on the backs of customer’s like Google, RIM, Mappy and Wayfinder

• Also helped by selection of Teleatlas to power Google Maps for mobile and Google Earth in Europe

• TomTom was largest customer representing 32% of revenue

• Automotive business saw declines in part due to loss of VW business, although picked up BMW business which should ship in 2008

• Expects 2008 revenue between 375 – 385 euro, versus 308 euro in 2007

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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

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What the heck is eGPS?

So one of the announcements to come out of the Mobile World Congress this week was the demo of eGPS by a company called CSR. The ‘e’ is for enhanced, so what eGPS does is to enhance existing GPS. That’s right, not replace or substitute, but enhance, as in ‘help your current GPS work better’… kinda like that STP oil treatment you put in your car… it doesn’t replace the oil you put in your car, it just goes along with your oil to help your engine operate better.

It’s essentially trying to do a better job of assisting the GPS chip (similar to aGPS) in getting its bearings when it can’t see the satellites it needs or when the chip awakens out a deep sleep and awakens all disoriented. I am sure we’ve all had the experience of waking up after a long night after traveling or drinking and having those few moments where you think “where am I, what time is it??’ Well think of eGPS as your friend that is there when you wake up that says, “hey man its 10:25 and your at my house on my couch, there’s the front door!” Well, you would have figured that all out on your own eventually but your friend ,or own personal eGPS, just sped up the process for ya. That’s essentially what it’s all about.


GPS can certainly use all the help it can get in urban canyons and other challenging environments… but it looks like this new eGPS, like the old aGPS, requires carriers to deploy eGPS server around the networks, which isn’t a small project. So I’d file it under the category of cool things to look out for, only if a cooler thing doesn’t come along to leapfrog it before it has a chance to ramp up.

The GPS Business News article does a much better job of explain the ins and outs and pros and cons and I suggest it for anyone interested in more details.

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