Free Google Sat Nav Announcement has Big Impact
Posted November 4th, 2009 by simon
The market in GPS devices offering various Sat Navs which give people turn-by-turn directions has been reacting dramatically to the news that Google will be offering the same functionality for free. Google have developed a live Sat Nav application for mobile phones and the forthcoming Motorola Droid will be the first phone to use the new app. Similar apps have traditionally been quite costly but Google have been developing their amazing free maps application on the web for quite some time and this was their next logical step.
The news has had an instant impact on the big GPS companies and both Garmin and TomTom suffered drops in share price. For Garmin it was almost 20% while TomTom’s drop was closer to 10%. This is terrific news for consumers and it is probably about time the market had a shake up. Mobile phones are becoming more and more diverse in terms of functionality and the Droid also looks set to be a real contender for the iPhone.
