Good For Consumers, But for Garmin?

By William Trent of Stock Market Beat

We have written several times about how the digital navigation market appears finally to be taking off, which has certainly helped shares of Garmin (GRMN) over the last couple of years (see chart below). We have also noted the increasing competition from major consumer electronics companies such as Pioneer and Sony. An article caught our eye today that shows how far the competition is going.IBM Embedded Speech Technology to Drive Pioneer In-Car Navigation System: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

“Speech recognition is at the beginning of a tidal wave in cars,” said Karen Rubin, director of product planning and marketing for navigation, Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. “Drivers can now enter destinations, search for points of interest, and access their music on the built-in hard drive using their voices.”

All of this is clearly good for consumers, who will have more choices than ever when considering a new digital navigation system. Whether Garmin will be able to maintain its stock performance
against competition is open to question.

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