Marine Electronics
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The marine GPS Systems market is a fast changing and complex market involving not only electronic systems companies, but also GPS software companies and GPS semiconductor manufacturers.
Complicating the analysis of the marine GPS systems market is that it is part of a much broader product market, the GPS systems market. That market not only produces products for the maritime industry and the recreational boating community, but also GPS systems for the automotive, aviation, agricultural and land surveying markets.
Most analysts today are predicting overall GPS growth in the range of 10 percent. However, trying to obtain a number for the marine GPS systems market is difficult. And the reason is that the line between a GPS system and a marine GPS system is blurring.
With iPhones and iPods and PCs all able to be configured as portable GPS systems, today’s sailors have the option of foregoing a traditional GPS system from the mainline marine GPS systems manufacturers.
Garmin International, Furuno Electric, Raymarine Northstar, MX Marine, and Navico, which sells its products through its more well-known B&G, Eagle, Lowrance, Navman, and Simrad.brands are all vulnerable.
However, a shift in the consumer marine market to general purpose platforms from marine specific platforms in particular poses a problem for Garmin. That’s because a large share of Garmin’s marine electronics system sales comes from GPS handheld devices; making the company an easy target for smart phone and GPS application software companies. A smart phone today can be easily configured as a GPS handheld device with GPS software, a GPS chip and a set of GPS marine digital maps.
Further adding to competitive pressures is the fact that GPS chips, the components that are used to build GPS systems, are dropping in price and physical size, giving cell phone makers, such as Sprint, and PC makers the option of placing GPS chips in their products.
Most of the top of the line marine electronics companies, unlike Garmin, obtain their marine GPS system revenue from a much broader range of GPS based systems, such as GPS chartplotters, advanced GPS navigation systems and GPS based automatic identification and radar systems. The complexity of these systems protects these companies from smart phone companies. However, still, these companies have to still consider any competition that may come from netBook and laptop software integrators.
The viewpoint that the future of marine electronics companies does not lie in the hardware but in software is emerging in the marine GPS systems market. Many marine electronics companies are now “not” offering pre-configured marine GPS systems that run on their hardware platform, but run on your everyday PC.
Adding to the mix, though, is the redesign of the GPS satellite system that circles the globe. The new constellation of satellites now permits higher levels of GPS accuracy, more reliable coverage in more locations, and offers satellite reprogrammability.
What this potentially means is that designs of next generation marine GPS systems won’t need to be as complex or as expensive. With an improved GPS satellite system, vendors will not have to concentrate on GPS reception hardware and software issues, but can focus their efforts on new service features that the new satellites offer.
For innovative marine GPS system companies this presents an ideal opportunity. GPS companies that are able to implement features that the new GPS constellation offers could very well take market share from those that are not so quick on their feet.
