By Lucas van Grinsven
PARIS (Reuters) - Sony Corp (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) aims to grab 20 percent of the car navigation market in Europe, the European president of the consumer electronics giant said on Wednesday.
The Japanese company last month started selling its first two standalone car navigation products on the European market, priced around 500 euros, and is planning several new product introductions by the middle of the year, Fujio Nishida said at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit.
"The new products will show exclusive points of interests that no other devices have, like Michelin star restaurants," Nishida said at the summit, held in Paris.
"We're aiming for 20 percent ... in a couple of years," he said when asked what market share he aimed to achieve.
Sony's main competitor in the emerging navigation devices market is TomTom (TOM2.AS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) from the Netherlands, which introduced the first standalone devices around two years ago and has about a 56 percent market share in Europe and 25 percent in the United States.
But Sony said it expected to take market share not so much from the market leader but from a long list of smaller players which have started to flood the market with competitively priced navigation products over the last six months.
"I know that TomTom is taking over 50 pct of the market share, but all the other brands, these are still tiny ventures. There's no big brand like Philips Electronics (PHG.AS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz). I know they are coming to the market, and we want to take that share as early as possible. That's why we decided to jump into the market last year," Nishida said.
Some analysts expect the market for car navigation systems to grow to nine million devices in Europe this year. Continued...
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