Berg Insight: Mobile Personal Navigation Systems Hit Stride in Late 2005

Courtesy of Tekrati Research News comes research from Berg Insight that predicts "shipments of handset based personal navigation solutions in Europe and the U.S. will reach 12 million units by 2009." The firm said, "2005 marked the first successful marriage of cellular and navigation technologies. The result: shipments of around 1 million on-board and off-board systems, mainly in the fourth quarter of 2005."

Berg Inisght predicts sales of handset based personal navigation solutions to grow by 86 percent year-on-year. Johan Fagerberg at Berg Insight said, "We are very optimistic about the market potential for mobile personal navigation services. There is already a wide range of navigation solutions available for both smartphones and Java-enabled handsets. Technologies like A-GPS, Indoor-GPS and Galileo will soon enable handset manufacturers to include satellite positioning in mass-market models for the European market. This will radically improve the market conditions for navigation and all other location-based services."

According to the firm, "the top three providers of handset based personal navigation solutions during 2005 were Jentro, Route66 and TomTom. Thanks to a successful final quarter on the German market, Jentro was able to snatch the top spot with its off-board solution for Java-handsets. Meanwhile Route66 and TomTom reinforced their market positions with on-board solutions for Symbian OS smartphones."