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Navigating through mobile

BANGALORE: Ring tones, wallpapers and games on mobiles will soon be passé. They may be overtaken by the navigational aids, touted as the new “killer application” for mobiles. Speakers from several countries discussed the prospects for digital navigational applications on mobile phones at a conference in Bangalore on Tuesday. The Canalys Navigation Forum 2008, organised by Canalys, a U.K.-based company specialising in providing advisory services to technology vendors, discussed the emerging scenario for such devices in the Asia-Pacific region.

Chris Jones, Vice-President and Principal Analyst, Canalys, said the market for navigational devices was “one of the fastest growing segments of the consumer electronics sector.” Daryl Chiam, analyst at Canalys, said in Western markets, the navigational devices first came as dedicated Personal Navigation Devices (PND), portable devices which people could carry or install in cars. Later, they were incorporated in mobile phones.

Thomas Leliveld, Director, Sales and Marketing, Find New and Multimedia at Nokia, told The Hindu that markets such as India had “leapfrogged” the PND stage and directly reached a point where they could assimilate mobile phones doubling as navigational aids.

Nokia, according to Canalys, has a market share of 90 per cent of the “smart phone” market. Mr. Leliveld said Nokia was planning to launch 30 different models of devices with GPS functionality to aid navigation.

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