Garmin's market share will definitely fall in the next few years. Their products are overpriced and route recalculations are slow. The market is flooded with numerous gps devices these days, and most consumers demand bang for their buck...

Garmin is the best made gps on the market. I see prices coming down, but not their market share. Their gps's will continue to get much more sophisticated and that will keep them relevent. People said Apple was dead 10 years ago. If you believed that then, you look like a fool today.

Per the article:
"Competitors are rolling out cheaper devices that offer the same basic functionality—displaying your location on a map and offering spoken directions ("Turn left on Jones Road"). Cell-phone manufacturers are adding GPS to handsets, and consumers may detour around Garmin in favor of carrying one lower-cost gadget. Garmin also faces tough choices as competitors buy up the map suppliers that are critical to GPS devices. The company's executives insist they're not worried. They say their engineering teams are constantly devising features that help justify Garmin's higher prices..."

Oh really???

Garmin has in fact taken away useful features away - road excludes, avoidances, track logging and multiple via points (other than the 7xx, which only brought back the last two features), while other manufacturers offer them for a much lower price than Garmin.

Also, sat performance has taken a huge step backwards with the slimmer, non flip-up antenna models (see gpspassion).

While other manufacturers and services are going forward, Garmin is going backwards and, unfortunately at a premium price.

It won't be long before the general public realizes this and Garmin's #1 ranking will ultimately be affected.

This love affair some of us have with Garmin is unfounded when you take a better and closer look. And this, coming from somebody like myself, who has long championed Garmin products.

Rob

We used to tell consumers that the cheaper PND's have harder user interface and a lower end GPS receiver. No SiRF receiver.
Since than, we saw $79 personal navigation device units being offered with relatively easy UI and SiRF.
Currently, I feel the TomTom 920 with voice recognition feature is an excellent unit at the current rebate price of $499, the VR works much better than Magellan 3250 and 4250. I love Magellan products and I see Magellan is currently behind with VR technology.
TomTom 920 VR feature is much better, MapShare,Enhanced Positioning Technology, NA and EU maps and so much more features at such a reasonable price.
Garmin is trying to brand themselves as a top shelve product and only offer the lower price models with limited features. If you notice, Garmin is no longer displaying their SiRf GPS receiver logo anymore.
They will have 5" display and VR next year but Garmin being a reactive company seems to always be a few steps behind when it comes to new innovations.
Everyone is trying to compete in the sub $100 price point and you can't offer full features without having to charge for it.
I see the near future, they will be putting commercials on the PND units to off set the cost of product.
You get what you pay for and we deserve what we have asked for, bad part is sometimes we get what we wish for and find out it's not really what we, want.

I think you should still stick to liking Garmin, why, their routing algorithm, UI and their customer support is still second to none, so why are you complaining now about?

I have to say that the comments are ALL spot on. To me, Garmin is a no-brainer, anytime I look at another device, you find that the Garmin performs it's core functions very well - GOOD directions.

It's also easier to use. I've seen that the new Magellan devices as well as virtually every Tom Tom I've seen are also very simple to use.

The bulk of these low end devices, including the Mio's of which I bought my wife one - horribly complex to use in comparison.

Garmin's biggest plus is how clean the interface is, and how easy it is to program a route.

It's biggest knock is just what one of the other commenters posted - as they move towards smaller Nuvi sized devices and away from the StreetPilot series, especially the old 26XX and 27XX series, we have less features now - although prices are down as well to be fair.

Luckily, it does it core functions flawlessly. Gives good directions. Features like the Bluetooth speakerphone work well, and the volume has consistently gotten louder as newer models come out. Tom Tom even has some models with Bluetooth - but no speakerphone function!

One complaint I do have about the Nuvi is very slow map scrolling. Tom Tom seems more real-time, the Garmin moves position very jumpy and blocky. It's better in 2D mode to be sure, but I happen to prefer 3D mode. Also, with text to speech enabled, as it's announcing a turn, the map updates virtually stop during the portion where the talking is occuring.

They certainly should be wary of the fact that there is an opening for a new market leader.

GPS4Me,

I'm not understanding your "why are complaining about now" question to me.

You seem to be in agreement with me till you said that.

To be clear, yes, Garmin does have the best UI and support, in my opinion,(though I'm not sure if you were being facetious or mocking me, because you know that I always say that about Garmin).

However, that quote in that article by the Garmin executive, to which I responded, is pure bull on his part. Garmin still charges a premium price after eliminating many of its functions that exist in other manufacturers units for a much lower cost to the consumer. For Garmin's CFO and executives to claim that, "their engineering teams are constantly devising features that help justify Garmin's higher prices" is pure nonsense.

As you say, Garmin is hardly innovative these days and if anything they want you to pay more for less.

I will tell you what Garmin is seemingly doing. They are milking the nuvi line for all they can. They know it's popular, that most consumers aren't savvy, and they can keep selling the same software, with past features they eliminated, in their higher and low end models. So if you pay 200 or 900 dollars, the routing software is the same.

Then they bring back one or two features (as they did in the nuvi 7xx), pretend that it's innovative (though it existed in older software) and market it as the latest and greatest. Then the less than savvy public falls for it and buys it like it's going out of style.

Like I said, they will remain lazy and keep coming up with "new" nuvis that are hardly new. as they introduce features that once existed. It's a sham and a racket.

Anyway, why should I refrain from making these legitimate comments? I'm not sure what you're getting at or why my complaints trouble you.

Garmin NPD market share NOT counting stores such as Walmart is only 31% from 51%. TomTom up to 31% and Magellan holding 21% but this number changes daily.
I think when Garmin show off their VR w / 5" display PND, this may change the numbers also.
Currently, the Nuvi 200 being under $199 is a great value, it does not have SiRf and it's a bit slow but over all a very nice small unit with simple features.

Magellan new products will hopefully be represented at CES and I think we know what's coming down the line.
Think DASH but with Magellan user interface and marketing background. It's going to be a killer if it works. ;)

TomTom has done very well this Q4, they wanted 30% and could have had 40% plus if they had enough products for their dealers.

Over all the Top 3 is still holding their lead with Apple, Google, Nokia and many more to play in this GPS market soon, I hope branding a name is enough when it may take much more resources that most company does not have.

Cobra drop out of the PND race and I would not be surprise if Alpine, Clarion or Pioneer gives up due to low end model cost.

Mio did not make a dent in this PND market this year.

Navigon is taking a few percentage points.

It's getting more interesting as we see what these company will reveal at CES next year.

Keep up the good work, bookmarked and referred a few friends.