Nokia dropped a bombshell on the navigation world two weeks ago, when it announced a completely free mobile GPS navigation service. The application is almost as good as a free-standing GPS navigation device and it’s a free download to anyone with a Nokia device that has GPS… of which there are 28 different models. So it should come as no surprise that it has been a popular download. And Nokia has announced that it has already seen 1.4 million downloads of the app.
That’s a lot of downloads
Isn’t it? That’s an average of 700,000 per week… 100,000 per day. Nokia reports that the first million happened in the first week, with roughly one download being completed every second. Interestingly, the US wasn’t even in the top 5 countries for downloads - China, Italy, U.K., Germany, and Spain were the countries most Nokia owners downloaded from. I wonder if that’s to do with a lower amount of Nokia ownership in the States, or something to do with GPS navigation being more entrenched there?
For more details on Nokia Maps and what it can do, check our earlier report.
What we think?
The people who stand to lose the most from this app are the people who make GPS navigation devices for cars. Garmin and TomTom aren’t in a great position to compete with free navigation on mobile. They may have a better service, but mobile is ways cheaper – and more than likely it’s in your pocket the whole time. On the very day that Nokia announced that Maps app, TomTom shares took a 15% dive in value. And today, Garmin has announced another mobile device, as it tries to edge away from the threatened pure-navigation. So I’ll say it again: be afraid, GPS navigators – mobile is coming.
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