The sales volume in 2008Q3 decreased with market hitting bottom in July and August, before recovering steadily in September.

In 2008, East China, South China and North China were the major sales regions, which accounted for 72% of the whole market. Affected by Olympic Games, the sales volume of Beijing market in August decreased, but North China (excluding Beijing) increased slightly.

The number of terminal manufacturers was increased in 2008, but with more fake and illegal machines entering the market, the competition heated up. China's PDN industry chain has enjoyed continued improvements since its establishment.

However, with PND products becoming more readily available and through a variety of brands, fake and illegal PND products also grew steadily throughout 2008.

Based on excellent brand influence, powerful productivity and professional products, Shinco led the 2008 market, Garmin enjoyed the second largest market share based on powerful brand foundation.

MIO, ROUTON and City Express had the third, fourth and fifth largest market share respectively. An overview of the market showed that fake and illegal machines are increasingly affecting the market structure as well.

With competition heated up, downstream terminal manufacturers found themselves in an increasingly severe situation. CCID predicts that the market will favour a few concentrated brands which will bring about market convergence, resulting in a new competition pattern.

With prices of navigation chips and small size LCD displays going down, and the gradual maturation of navigation software and hardware, the PND industry chain has basically formed in Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta.

Upstream is investment hotspot, with GPS chips, map data collection requiring a solid capital foundation. Chip design requires a high quality and steady technology team and technology accumulation; map data collection needs the aptitude issued by State and nationwide surveying and mapping team.

These two links require huge investments in talent hunting and operation costs, and with relatively low risk, they are the industry's investment hotspot.

Midstream operation is steady. Hardware and software application development, electrical fitting processing are not limited in GPS market change, but depend on electronics industry. A dispersed pattern of terminal manufacturers is considered favourable for midstream enterprises.

PND has similar predicament with MP3, and China's MP3 market is in a state of flux for the following reasons: firstly, the market needs time to digest rapid development result; secondly, products that offer similar functions and more, the mobile phone, PSP, MP4 and MP5 drained a huge share of the market, and that the MP3 is no longer seen as a novelty in face of more sophisticated multimedia entertainment products; finally, fake and illegal MP3 products undermined revenues of branded manufacturers.

PND too, is affected by the severe duplication of products, availability of cheap copycats, and excessive market orders. As a low cost navigation solution, PND has great room for development, but preloaded and modified GPS and GPS mobile phones will play a greater role in the future. PND products' life cycle depends on manufacturers' products and industrial supervision to a large extend.

China's PND market is expected to grow steadily with fall in the production prices and the gradual maturity of the whole GPS industry chain. CCID Consulting forecasts that the sales volume of China's PND market in 2008 will reach 1.57 million sets.

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