Insight from TomTom US President J. Vigreaux
Written by Scott Martin on January 13th, 2009 in TomTom GPS News.
Jocelyn Vigreaux, the US President of TomTom offered a few interesting positions on TomTom, their new connected device for the US and the general outlook for the GPS market. In a Barron's posting, Vigreax cites the falling prices for raw materials as a key enabler of low prices in the holiday season. We saw the TomTom ONE 125 hit (and stay at) $99 for a long time, offering a great value in a top name brand.
In launching their new TomTom GO 740 LIVE, the company expects to attract high end users while capturing some monthly revenue. The units come with a year's subscription to the cellular connection service, and will cost about $10 a month after that.
In looking ahead, Vigreaux talked about the surge of cellphone navigation and cited that they appear to address different use cases or needs. He and I are aligned on this; phones inherently have or need small screens, while navigators are better suited for larger screens. It may just come down to sacrifices; those with top of the line smart phones want navigation built in and will sacrifices screen size for the rest of the bundled features, while others will take the small phone footprint and adopt a larger navigation unit. Should be interesting to see where this all lands us in the coming years....
Thanks Jim for sending this in.