Garmin aims for no. 1 in Taiwan's PND market in 2010.

Taipei, Nov. 6, 2009 (CENS)--Launching three new PNDs (personal navigation devices) in Taiwan, Garmin International Inc., one of the world's top three brands of GPS (global positioning system) devices, aims to challenge Mio's leading position in the Taiwanese market for PNDs, according to Tony An, Garmin's marketing director for the Asia-Pacific market.

Garmin commanded a 36% share of the Taiwanese market for PNDs in the second quarter of this year as No. 2 brand, with Mio and TomTom ranking No. 1 and No. 3, respectively. To outpace Mio, Garmin has debuted three new PNDs, namely Nuvi1350, Nuvi 1470 and Nuvi 1480, all of which feature touch screens and preloaded maps of Taiwan, in a bid to use the self-developed maps to boost its brand recognition with local consumers.

The brand noted that it has already upgraded its independently developed map of Taiwan and allows PND users to download it. Besides, the brand will also step up installing the newly upgraded map, which has been used in the three newest PNDs, into its older models for sale in Taiwan. In the past, the brand tended to cooperate with Da Yu Publishing Co. Ltd. on development of the island's map for its PNDs.

Institutional investors indicated that by focusing more on independently developing PND maps for Taiwan, Garmin is likely to threaten the leader Mio in the market and may outstrip it by the end of this year. The Taiwan-based Mio scored pretax profits of NT$428 million (US$13.169 million at uS$1: NT$32.5) for the third quarter, successfully turning red ink into black.

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Global Market Shares of World's Major PND BrandsBrand                   Q4, 2008   Q1, 2009   Q2, 2009Garmin                  37%        34%        36%TomTom                  30%        26%        29%Mio (incorporatingMagellan and Navam)   10%        10%        11%Navigon                 3%         5%         3%Source: Canalys