‘By end-2014, we will have six to eight OE clients.’

Peter Bolesza NNG LLC’s VP (Eastern Europe & Emerging Markets), speaks to Kiran Bajad on the huge potential for navigation products in India.

What kind of response have you received from OEMs in India?
In about two months, you will see one OEM coming on board. By end-2014, we will have six to eight OE clients. At present, 3-4 OEMs offer navigation solutions with their cars in India and we are working with two of them, one being Renault. I cannot reveal the second name at the moment. We are also working on some projects that will take a while to materialise.

Are all of them OEM-fitted projects?
I would say that it will be a mix of both.

Globally you have a 70 percent aftermarket and 30 percent OE share. Why this gap?
Our OE or line-fitted business is just two years old and during this time, we have reached 30 percent of the total business. The aftermarket share will remain at 70 percent as it cannot go any further. We hope the OE share will grow over a period of time. For the next five years, we have 20-30 million licences for iGo software already signed with automakers globally. That’s a huge number.

You said that EU navigation systems provide a lot of value to users but India it doesn’t.
Data quality is better in Europe where we also have traffic services more spread out over the major cities. We also have a parking service that tells you at your next destination whether a free parking slot is available or not. In India, the traffic service is spread to only 11 cities, but it will be lot more in the future and will expand to 20-30 cities.

Will your EU offerings be launched here in India?
Yes, we will bring them in India.

How mature is the European market in navigation systems and how long will it take India to get to that level?
It will take a while in India to collect data and this will involve huge investment and enormous work. It could take up to five years to reach a point where we will be close to the European level.

How old is iGo navigation and what are its unique features?
The first navigation came out in 2004. We have one GPS navigation software package and put all the features globally. What a lot of other companies do is adopt project-by-project navigation solutions.

How big is India’s navigation market?
No one knows precisely but the scope is huge. The total penetration of navigation systems in cars (in India) is less than one percent, so there’s scope to grow. India is growing to just 5 percent which is the global minimum; we look forward to a 6-7 times increase. In EU and America, about 20 percent of cars are fitted with navigation systems and in the aftermarket 40-50 percent; so every second car has some form of navigation.