SEOUL, KOREA - Amid a slowdown in the growth of the car navigation market, Korea’s automobile navigator makers, including Thinkware and Fine Digital, are turning eyes toward the black box business, aimed at making it as their new cash cow.The sales share of car navigation systems in the nation’s manufacturers making navigators and black boxes has continued on a downward trend. The domestic car navigation market entered a phase of saturation with the uptake rate of car navigation systems exceeding 40 percent.
In particular, as navigation apps are offered through smartphones for free and the share of built-in navigation systems grows, the sales of standalone-type navigation systems have sharply slowed down.
Against this backdrop, domestic car navigator makers are placing more emphasis on car black box market. The uptake ratio of car black boxes marked about a two-fold jump to 10.5 percent in 2012 from 5.4 percent in 2011. As it became mandatory for commercial vehicles to install black boxes, effective from this year, the black box installation rate is expected to shoot up to over 30 percent.
enews@hankyung.com
*Article provided by The Korea Economic Daily
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