Apr 03, 2009
Since the commercialization in 1990s, the market of different kinds of GPS (Global Positioning System) application products has been growing rapidly. Navigation products have been changing from luxuries to necessities, and car navigation system is a very good example.
Generally speaking, car navigation device is composed of GPS antenna, the host that integrated with display, functional key features, and voice output device; while key issue for promotion and application is the electronic map. When GPS related components and technologies are getting more mature, vendors have also explored a wide range of application areas. Apart from general transportation applications, it has been extended to the applications related to public safety, fleet management and tracing, recording of movements of goods, and tracing of missing people or pets.
As for car navigation system, the major applications used to focus on pure navigation application in the past, however, due to rapid development of electronics, communication and semiconductor industries, PDA, handset and audio/video entertainment systems that equipped with GPS feature are getting cheaper and more popular in the market, hence car GPS devices are also integrating information that needed by drivers and passengers with system services including communication, monitoring and entertainment, to develop more in-depth, considering and personalized value-added items, and offer safer and more convenient driving environment to the drivers.
Make Your Car Smart
Giantec Inc. is one of the Taiwan companies that successfully integrated GPS navigation system with all the information that the drivers and passengers need, and developed its VPC (Vehicle PC) series solution that make automobile more vivid.
Giantec was established in 1996, and was an experienced manufacturer in IPC industry before getting involved in the car PC industry. The Company has successfully introduced the digital multimedia entertainment system for the Taipei Bus. According to Linda Wang, Marcom of Sales & Marketing Division at Giantec, the Company used to focus on monitoring systems that based on x86 platforms (such as digital monitoring systems), but is now focusing on automobile applications. Product lines include CPU cards (around 60% by revenue), DVR (Digital Video Recorder, 25%), and VPC (15%).
Though VPC is a new product line of the Company that was newly released in 2008, however, it is the business focus of Giantec this year. Fay Chang, Project Manager of Sales & Marketing Division at Giantec says, “When you are traveling or on business trip with your car, you have to carry your laptop, GPS, iPod, PDA, etc., with you. Now, anything you can do with a desktop PC and other personal information devices can be done with Giantec’s vehicle computer. Our car PC enables you to create your own mobile office by integrating all the myriad mobile applications into one system with lots of money and space saved.”
Giantec car PC is an intelligent vehicle PC system that meets harsh in-car environment by providing vehicle-standard multi-lock connectors, 2G anti-vibration and 80G anti-shock capabilities. It is no need for users to worry their system and HDD would get crashed. The rugged design can adapt to a wide temperate range between -20˚C to 70˚C. In addition, Giantec car PC integrates mobile office, information, entertainment and communication capability to make automobile more vivid. Users can quickly access to Internet, arrange their schedule, or make an IP-phone call. It also provides reliable navigation system for real time information on the road. Moreover, the device also brings in music, TV, mobiles and PC games more easily for users.
Giantec has introduced its VPC product series in late 2008, though it is not a very good timing since the economic situation is so bad, Chang still believes Giantec’s car PC series has huge market despite financial crisis and global economic downturn. Giantec’s VPC product has three series at present, VPC 6000 series: a 2 DIN infotainment system with LCD and user-friendly touch screen control, embedded a 5.1-channel car stereo with a personal computer system, it supports GPS navigation, wireless communication, car audio, media player, EQ and smart power control. VPC 2000 series: a 1 DIN car PC device that supports dual-independent display, DVD ROM, SD/MMC card reader, PCMCIA slot and USB connection; and VPC 3000 series, a compact car PC device that is ideal for mounting PC platform on all kinds of vehicles.
Specialist in Fleet Management and Tracking Solutions
Based in Taiwan, ARKNAV is one of the leaders in the provision of superior GPS peripherals and innovative integrated tracking solutions. ARKNAV designs, develops, and manufactures GPS tracking products for B2B and OEM/ODM customers, including location based and personal tracking systems for the vehicle, medical and marine markets.
According to Kevin Wei, Vice President of ARKNAV International, Inc., ARKNAV’sproduct series can be divided into two categories: navigation and tracking. The former is mainly represented by GPS antenna while the later is mainly GPS module that specially for tracking system. Wei indicates that GPS antenna series shares around 30% of the Company’s revenue, GPS module for tracking purposes (vehicle tracking, personal tracking and asset tracking) shares 60%, and GPS data logger shares the remaining 10%.
Wei states that ARKNAV is specialized in car GPS system, and its GPS antenna products feature RF protection, thus differs other GPS antenna products in the industry. Following the success of car GPS device, ARKNAV has introduced personal tracking system couple of years ago, and it is a successful attempt for ARKNAV to get involved in consumer GPS products.
Apart from RF protection, ARKNAV’s tracking systems are also very competitive in firmware, software and marketing. “ARKNAV’s GPS tracking systems equipped with complete firmware, can meet different needs of various consumers,” states Wei.
In order to catch up with the emerging needs of the market, ARKNAV keeps introducing new products in 2009. The Company tends to introduce a GPS system that specially for the monitoring of driver activities, and is very suitable for driver management and safety driving appeal.
From GPS Receiver to Tracker
There is an increasing number of GPS receiver manufacturers getting involved in the development of tracking systems. Such as Sheng Jay Automation Technologies Co., Ltd., since its establishment in 1991, the Company has 18 years in making GPS receivers, and has been getting involved in the development and manufacturing of tracking systems in recent years. The same as ARKNAV, Sheng Jay offers both personal tracking and AVL (Automobile Vehicle Locator) solutions at present. However, Sheng Jay is specialized in marine GPS systems, and it makes it differs from a majority of Taiwanese GPS manufacturers.
According to Tony Huang, Sales Specialist at Sheng Jay, GPS receiver devices now shares around 70% of the Company’s revenue, while other product series shares the remaining 30%. “We tend to enhance the revenue of the tracking system product line to 50%,” states Huang.
Regarding competitive edges of the Company, Huang indicates that Sheng Jay develops its own software for the Company’s AVL systems, and its AVL systems can track 300 vehicles at the same time. In addition, its AVL systems also equipped with the power interruption feature, and can effectively guard the vehicles against burglary.
It is worth to mention that Sheng Jay has also introduced series of PND products that specially for personal navigation application, such as its GPS watch series that special designed for travelers who has adored GPS product with taste to use on the go.
Tracking is the Hot Spot of 2009
Not only Sheng Jay tends to enhance the proportion of its tracking system product line, NaviSys Technology also states that it will focus on tracking system this year. Established in 2006 with a vision to provide positioning solutions, NaviSys now has various product lines covering engine board, GPS module, GPS receiver and GPS USB dongle.
Lily Fan, Account Manager of Sales & Marketing department at NaviSys claims that NaviSys is good at technologies and software, “we cooperate with our customers to develop dedicated solutions, we develop our own software and chipset, thus it is also our core competitive edges.”
Future Development of Car GPS System
In the future, there will be a variety of development regarding embedded car navigation system and PND products, especially the needs for real time information is enhancing, hence Wi-Fi / GPRS online feature is a very important development trend in GPS devices. Thus enable drivers to update software, image and information, simplify operation procedure, receive navigation information clearly when they are driving become the core and most important value of various kinds of navigation devices.
As for developed countries, the market of GPS device is expected to heading forwards the competition of branding, software and differentiation of content and services. On the other hand, the price of GPS component is falling while features are more complete, it is expected that the middle class people in emerging countries will following the steps of European and the US customers, and boom the car navigation market again.
Source:TAITRA