NAVIGON said the company has decided to withdraw temporarily from PND business in the North American market because of difficult economic climate and violent price competition, but it will not close its Chicago office that will continue to serve the company’s automotive and mobile phone businesses in North America.
This German company introduced the company’s first products in North America market in September 2007. During the period of January-March 2008, the company came in the fourth rank on the US market with a share of 7.7%. The company was able to reach this market share so fast as it invested in advertising and was the first to introduce a lifetime traffic service bundled into the price of its product. The company also had a local product team to localize its software to North American tastes.
Possibly the company’s existence on the US market had been sustainable as long as the company’s A brands maintained a certain level of premium price. But as products like the TomTom ONE was sold at $99 since the end of last year, there has been less opportunity for NAVIGON though the company’s product have good quality.
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