Defining a category
In 2001, as more accurate GPS satellite readings became available, TomTom was among the first to recognise that in-car navigation presented a major opportunity. We envisioned that there was a market for an affordable, easy-to-use car navigation system that integrated all the components in one portable device and effectively defined a new category of consumer electronics; the portable navigation device (PND).

TomTom grew to its current scale by leading the PND product category with a recognised brand. As demand for PNDs and car navigation in general grew, many players entered the market. For the last two years, the PND category has been in decline, owing to a combination of rapid adoption leading to high penetration rates, market erosion from smartphone and in-dash systems, and today’s economic climate.

Market anticipation
We merged with Tele Atlas in 2008, one of the two largest global digital mapping companies at that moment, specialised in developing and licensing digital map products and other geo referenced content. This enabled us to broaden our product range to automotive, enterprise and government customers.

We believe that today location information is more important than ever. Increasingly, people are accessing it via an array of devices, such as PNDs, in-built navigation systems, smart phones, tablets, and the web. More and more information is geocoded and location-based applications (including navigation) are widely spread and used. The car industry has embraced car navigation and we see substantial growth in the number of vehicles that come out of the factory with navigation installed.

Accuracy, relevance and ease of integration
All products we offer our customers to meet these growing demands are based on our three core assets; maps, traffic and navigation. By improving and tailoring our products in terms of accuracy, relevance and ease of integration, we will continue to meet market demand and expand our addressable markets to off-set the declining PND market.

Today we are focused on shortening the time to market for map changes, making use of community generated input, increasing the freshness of our maps. Through our propriety traffic delivery platform we are now positioned to sell our HD traffic information service independently to automotive customers. By increasing the number of countries where we offer real time services and growing our installed base of connected navigation systems we generate more community input. This helps us to continuously improve the quality and freshness of our products. Our products will become ever more accurate and relevant to the end user.

Launching new generations and modular components of connected navigation systems, including PNDs, will ensure we grasp opportunities at a global scale and grow our market position. We will take advantage of our maps, live services and navigation software and offer it in a device agnostic way that is easy to integrate. We are convinced that our products will continue to differentiate in the growing navigation and location based services market.

May 2012