The trend towards mobile navigation usage will not destroy demand for PNDs… at least not in 2011 anyway
02/02/2011 10:30 by Ryan GarnerSmartphones are competing with dedicated personal navigation devices (PNDs) for market share but recent research shows that PNDs are still preferred for in-car navigation. Smartphones can begin to win more market share by improving their user experience and integrating popular social networking and location based services.
Usage of mobile mapping and navigation services is booming. Almost a year ago Nokia announced that its mobile navigation service, Ovi Maps, would be free with a compatible Nokia handset. In the first week alone the service had been downloaded over 1.4 million times. According to Wikipedia Ovi Maps is now available in 74 countries and in 46 different languages. Similarly, Google now offers its mobile navigation services in 12 countries and it has proved a big hit with Google Android smartphone owners. Consequently, in the space of a couple of years the PND market has changed dramatically, with global in car satellite navigation providers such as TomTom and Garmin facing fresh competition from the all gadget devouring smartphone.
Or has it? New research from GfK Retail and Technology shows that over two-thirds (70%) of smartphone owners in the UK, Germany and France would prefer to use a dedicated PND for in-car navigation rather than their smartphone navigation service. This highlights some of the inherent user experience problems of smartphone based navigation services that can cause consumers problems.
A great strength of PNDs is their screen size and variety of map formats. This is where PNDs scored highly compared to smartphones in the GfK research. Whilst this is currently an issue among consumers, smartphone screens have been gradually increasing in size with the Samsung Galaxy S, running Android, having 4” screen. Whether this is large enough or not remains to be seen.
Probably the most critical flaw in smartphone navigation services is their reliance on a strong mobile data signal and the GPS receiver inside the smartphone. The mobile data signal is required to download the maps to the device in order to plan the route. Whilst Nokia users can overcome this by pre-installing the maps on the phone, this remains a problem for Google users. More problematic for smartphone users is signal strength of the GPS receiver. PNDs typically have stronger GPS receivers and are able to pinpoint your location more consistently and accurately. This is shown again in the research with just under 80% declaring themselves satisfied with PNDs for vacation trips, whereas only 66% say the same for smartphones.
Furthermore, a great asset of PNDs is their historical road data and live traffic updates. PNDs are currently better able to use this data to guide the user through the fastest route possible, a great asset in creating a better user experience.
Personal navigation market beyond 2011
With clear benefits to using a PNDs and better feedback from consumers concerning the user experience, PNDs still hold a valuable place in the personal navigation market. Can smartphones overcome these user experience problems and better compete with dedicated PND devices? Consumers in Germany seem to think so, with 53% believing smartphones will be able to compete with PNDs in the future (48% in the UK and 39% in France).
Furthermore, it is clear that location based services are becoming more popular among smartphone users. Foursquare and Facebook Places allow people to share their location with their friends and arrange places to meet. Connecting people and places will, in the future, create enormous value for consumers. A key theme at the 2011 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona this month is highly likely to be around mobile advertising and marketing. Location will play a pivotal role in the success of mobile marketing as advertisers can execute highly targeted and relevant location based promotions. If popular location based services can be integrated into mobile navigation services then smartphone devices will become increasingly important for navigational purposes.
With smartphones developing as fast as they are and consumers’ increasing reliance on mobile based services, PNDs are likely to face more serious competition in the years ahead.
ABOUT THE RESEARCH
This survey on the use of navigation devices was conducted by GfK Retail and Technology in November 2010 in Germany, France and the UK. More than 2,000 users of navigation systems took part, revealing their preferences, usage patterns and requirements. The survey also identified areas of potential in the market.
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Tags: Consumer, , , , LBS, Location, Location Based Services, Mobile Maps, Mobile Navigation, Nokia, Ovi Maps, Personal Navigation Device, PNDs, Sat Nav, TomTom
Interesting read Ryan.
When people are using satellite navigation systems (PND or smartphone) they want to get to their destination in the quickest and easiest possible way. Smartphones are a major pain as a navigation tool because the small screen and lack of GPS signal do nothing but make the journey longer and more complicated then it should be. I think the frustrations and bad experiences that come from this push people to invest in a reliable PND, making the smartphone a backup device for navigation.
As you say it will be interesting to see what the manufacturers have in store at MWC. I know that the new HTC devices on the market come with a pre-loaded maps tools and it would be interesting to see if this improves the smartphone navigation experience.
Convenience is the key. The more fittings designed to enable people to easily migrate Smartphones from pocket to dash – rather than lie tangled around gear stk – the more likely they will use them in car. Screen size too becomes less of an issue if mounted at eye-level. What about privacy? Whether sole use of a Smartphone, which holds addresses and integrates with social media, for maps instead of additional PND adds fire to the privacy debate is arguable, what is certain is that with so much data being scraped and tracked “singularity” means there really will be no place to hide. The future for Mkt Rsh & Mktg (via geo-somopromo) looks bright – unless convergence brings more regulation.
Further to Priyesh’s comment, I think that we forget that your smartphone is constantly pushing other data to you – texts, calls, push notifications, etc – which interrupts navigation, can be very distracting and so also quite dangerous.
And there’s the old chestnut of battery life – if you haven’t thought ahead and brought a charger that works through your car’s cigarette lighter*, navigation will very quickly drain your phone’s battery, and leave you without your communication tool.
* as David says – more wires to get tangled around your gearstick