BS Reporter | Business Standard | Bangalore, May 14, 2008

Visualise this: Your mobile phone playing guide while you navigate the streets of a new city that you have descended upon!

Well, that will soon be reality in India as cellular handset manufacturers and service providers get ready to cash in on the country's booming wireless market by offering navigation products and solutions. In the near future, more people in the country will be using their mobile phones to search addresses instead of taking print-outs of maps from desktops or asking passers-by for assistance.

This transition will be facilitated by the increase in sales of smart mobile devices (SMDs). According to global market research firm Canalys, sales of SMDs in India increased by 28 per cent to 849,100 units first quarter of 2008. Regarding end users of SMDs, 85.5 per cent are individuals and the rest are small, mediium and large enterprises.

The market is expected to touch 7.9 million units by 2010 and of this, nearly 45 per cent will be global position system (GPS)-based phones. "The surging numbers are a pointer to the tremendous potential for the navigation solutions market," said Rachel Lashford, manager, Canalys APAC, here on Tuesday.

The booming Indian mobile market has forced technology vendors to come out with new strategies that would lure the phone users to use new applications.

Nokia, for instance, has announced that it will release 2.0 version of maps on its high end handsets on May 23 in India. Nokia, which enjoys 90 per cent of the mobile navigation space in the country, was the first company to launch devices that are maps' compatible by launching the 1.0 version in March 2007.

"Till now our maps were focussed on places, but that will change now. We will now focus on people. Nokia devices will record and facilitate sharing of life," said Nokia's director (GTM software services — maps and search) Thomas Leliveld.

Apart from in-car navigation that will help a person drive from one destination to another, Nokia handsets will focus on pedestrian guidance and social aspects like helping users create and share mapping data with others.

"A person need not carry a portable navigation device if he is moving around in a given area, he can use the map on the handset to navigate," said Leliveld while dropping hints about Nokia's plan to make maps part of the handset instead of a paid software. "If we give something for free, there will be an impulse to buy the handset," he said and added that the technology vendors can monetise by allowing advertisements on the maps.

Daryl Chiam, mobile phone industry analyst at Canalys, said India presents a good market opportunity as it is going through an infrastructure development phase.

"Major Indian cities are growing rapidly and sometimes even locals are not aware of the new places that have been added. More people spend a lot of time navigating traffic while reaching office from home or vice-versa and they do not have access to information regarding traffic flow. As the navigation devices address these problems, business opporutinities are good here."

However, gaining a foothold in the navigation space it is not bereft of challenges. Bharti Airtel's marketing manager Guninder Singh said issues like accuracy of maps, regular updation of maps, putting more points of interest and simplifying the maps are some of the issues that need to be addressed.

Airtel, which had introduced mobile navigation on its Blackberry devices in July 2007, wants to take mobile phones beyond sending e-mails to help users navigate locations. The maps should be designed in such a way that they work in the Indian market.

Joining him, Rachel said the main inihibiting factor so far in the growth of India's navigation market is that although most of the country has been digitally mapped by local players, leading navigation brands have not yet taken the plunge into the Indian market. As a result, consumers have not been fully exposed to the benefits of GPS, she contended.

That, however, turns the spotlight on Indian mapping companies like CE Info Systems (MapmyIndia) and SatGuide. Said Rakesh Verma, managing director of MapmyIndia: "It is a myth that digital navigation maps for India are not available. We have maps that cover 1,000 cities and 600,000 villages and towns. Our maps cover 1.7 million road kms and have one lakh points of interest in 52 categories."

His company has introduced maps that can be downloaded or activated like it is done for recharging mobile phone currency.

Similarly, SatGuide has gone in for expansion of GPS navigation space by introducing maps in eight Indian languages. SatNav Technologies founder and CEO Amit Kishore Prasad said: "We are tapping those mobile phone users whose comfort levels may not be that high. We plan to prvide 120,000 navigation solutions this year."

In the pursuit to make fast money from the navigation space, the industry has favoured newer applications that interest youngsters. "If we have to reach the mass market, we have to come out with products that appeal to youngsters," contended Wayfinder CEO Magnus Nilsson.

With nearly 40 per cent of India's population to be aged between 20 and 44 by 2010, demands pertaining to navigation technologies is expected to be high.

© 2008 Business Standard story fileby