Price of navigational device has been cut in half in last year
Peter Wilson
Sun
If you’re beginning to think “hey, I’m ready for a GPS device in my car” you’re not alone among your fellow Canadians.
A whopping 106,000 navigation devices for autos — worth a total of $52.4 million — were sold in Canada in 2006, according to the market-tracking NPD Group.
In units, that’s a rise of 923 per cent over 2005 and a jump of 453 per cent in dollars spent on the global positioning systems.
NPD Group account manager Mark Haar said in an interview that his company doesn’t find out why people made the purchases, but it likely had to do with the drop in price in 2006.
“The average price was cut in half, essentially,” Haar said. “About a year ago the average price was about $800 and it’s down to about $400.
“So that price probably reached a threshold where consumers felt comfortable entering the marketplace.”
Haar said that NPD recorded almost 10 times the number of units purchased in December of 2006 compared with the year before that.
NPD did not pick out a brand leader in Canada but said the market is dominated by brands like Tomtom, Garmin, Magellan, and more recently, Mio. Other brands include Pioneer, Sony and Alpine.
“We only measure what’s sold through retailers,” Haar said.
He added that there has also been a trend toward smaller monitor sizes
“Roughly 70 per cent of the units sold had four-inch screens whereas a year ago that was about 50 per cent.
“So that may have played a role in the sense of how it looks or how much space it takes up in the car, etc.”
Haar, while cautioning that NPD does not forecast the market, said he expects the trend will likely continue.
“I don’t think we’ll see 10 times the amount, but if prices continue to go the way they’re going I would expect to see more Canadians getting into the market.”
The Canadian sales somewhat mirrored those in the United States, although the market is more mature there. U.S. sales increased 128 per cent to $476 million US, NPD said in a press release.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007
