Gramin sets up India office; targets mass satnav market with affordable devices

17th May 2012
Gramin sets up India office; targets mass  satnav market with affordable devices
Garmin's Made-for-India satnav options

New Delhi, May 17, 2012- Global leader in satellite navigation Garmin Corporation has launched two mass-market devices in India for customers seeking limited use of GPS features – the nüvi 40LM and 50LM, devices, priced at Rs. 8450 and Rs. 9990 respectively, The company has simultaneously opened its India office in Jasola, New Delhi. The devices will come with free maps of Singapore and Malaysia, two of the most visited places by Indian vacationers. In India, NAVTEQ Maps power portable navigation devices (PNDs) by worldwide leading navigation brand, Garmin. These devices like other Garmin devices will have a broadcast feature in Hindi and Indian English, to provide easier solution to the users and direct them to their final destination “Different from traditional navigation devices, which make it difficult to understand the street name or area because of in-built American accent, Garmin self-developed technology and was the first to implement Indian accent into devices. We believe Indian English sounds much more familiar and can be well-recognised by Indian people. Voice guidance in Hindi will further help in popularising the devices,” says Tony An, Garmin Asia Marketing Director. The nüvi 40LM display is a 4.3” widescreen. And, nüvi 50LM has an easy-to-see 5” large screen display. The devices come with free lifetime maps thus taking away the recurring cost and make the devices much more affordable in the long run. “nüMaps lifetime” will help you download the most up-to-date map information on streets, highways and points of interest as soon as new content is available for the lifetime of your Garmin GPS device. Some of the unique features are Junction View which helps drivers avoid last minute maneuvers, Lane Info guiding to the proper lane for navigation, Highway Mode telling you approaching exist on highway, Text-to-speech speaking street names in Indian English, Voice Guidance available both in Hindi and English, House Search for easier search and Go To Office/ Go Home with a simple click For Garmin the Indian market is as important as other markets around the world. “We enjoy 57% share in personal navigation devices in Americas and around 38% share worldwide. We entered Indian market more than 15 years and since then have been able to have a good share in the growing GPS market here. We are confident of increasing the share because of the quality that we provide and with affordable devices in the market we will have edge over others too,” adds An. Garmin was founded in 1989 by a small group of engineers with a big idea: that GPS technology could be utilized by everyday consumers for both work and play. In 1991, Garmin sold its first GPS-enabled device. Six years later, in 1997, the company sold its millionth unit. A decade after that, in 2007, it had sold 25 million devices. It only took another five years for Garmin to sell its 100 millionth product. www.garmin.co.in