In 2006, 815,000 sets of GPS were sold in China, generating sales revenues of RMB 4.19 billion. Compared with 2005, sales volume and sales revenues grew 50.8% and 107.3%, respectively.
The figures show that in 2006, sales revenues in the car GPS market grew much faster than sales volume, mainly due to big changes in product structure. During the year, the tide of large-scale installation of car GPS in public transport vehicles did not arrive as predicted. The market for basic-type GPS with simple positioning, anti-theft or dispatching functions grew slowly. By comparison, the static navigation GPS market grew rapidly. Navigation GPS has gradually become the mainstream product in China's GPS market.
In 2006, China's pre-installed static navigation GPS market grew fast. Japanese cars were still advocates in this market, with Toyota, Honda and Nissan car models all installed with navigation GPS. In addition, Shanghai GM, Beijing Hyundai and Chery also started to install navigation GPS in their new car models. In 2006, the output of passenger cars with pre-installed static navigation GPS in China topped 300,000 sets. As pre-installed static navigation GPS products got more market shares, average product price in China's GPS market also increased.
Similar to pre-installed navigation GPS, the portable navigation GPS market also made major progress in 2006. The market started to grow during the year. Despite its small size at present, the market now gets a clearer growth prospect. In 2006, numerous manufacturers introduced portable GPS navigation products. Advertisements about portable navigation GPS could be seen everywhere. Product price continued to drop. The portable navigation GPS market was ready to kick off.
Starting from 2007, China's car GPS market will enter a brand new period of growth. Japanese car-makers will continue to lead the pre-installed market, with all high-end Japanese cars and some new car models to be installed with pre-installed navigation GPS. What is worth noting is that local car makers, currently making great strides forward, may well take the lead in the industry in the current round information system upgrading in domestic cars. The rapid rise of the post-installed portable GPS navigation product market now only hinges on one thing, namely services relating to GPS navigation products. These include traffic and road condition information services, parking lot information services and interest spot information services. If the market rises on a large scale, the price of portable GPS navigation products may readily fall under RMB 1,500.
