“It is difficult to discern an
all-encompassing trend in Asia”
Steve Brazier, President & CEO, Canalys
What are the key market
segments you focus on?
Canalys was formed 10 years ago, and
we now have a range of services covering
various market segments. These include our
Mobile services, which comprise Mobile
Navigation Analysis and Smart Mobile
Device Analysis, which track and study the
worldwide markets on a quarterly basis.
We have more recently added Business
and Consumer Mobility Analysis services.
Canalys also has global services focused
on the Enterprise market, which look at
security, IPTV, unified communications
and networking, and on the Consumer
market, covering digital entertainment. The
name of the company is actually derived
from the Latin word for channels, the core
focus of our research, so underpinning
all of our work is our go-to-market
expertise. Additionally, the company has
a significant consulting division taking on
bespoke projects across all of these areas.
What is your opinion about
the trends and challenges
in the navigation market?
Navigation has proved to be one of our
most exciting areas of research since we
started officially tracking the market back
in 2004. The sector has been growing
aggressively during this period and it has
been great to see how this growth has
now spread to APAC and the Americas.
One of our challenges is tracking all
the different types of solutions, be they
hardware or software; smart phones,
PNDs or PMPs; perpetual or subscription;
and ensuring that our definitions and
databases will robustly handle them.
How do you see the market
potential for satellite
navigation in India?
We think there is significant market
potential for mobile navigation in India.
It is a unique market because smart
phones with integrated GPS arrived there
before PNDs, a reversal of the situation
in Western Europe, the US and China.
We believe that there is a burgeoning
opportunity for navigation on both
smart phones and PNDs, and we will
be talking about our forecasts for India
at our forthcoming Canalys Navigation
Forum event in Bangalore this month.
Location-based services are not really
established yet in India, but the advent
of GPS devices and increasing consumer
education around turn-by-turn navigation
will change this. Still, there is a lot of
work to be done to find revenue-generating
business models for location-based
services. There are endless decisions to be
made about end-user education, pricing,
and partnerships between software and
hardware vendors and service providers.
Could you highlight
key differences in the
navigation market in
Europe, the US and Asia?
Western Europe already has an established
mobile navigation market, which emerged
from the trend of bundling PDAs with
Bluetooth GPS receivers and software.
The market is still growing, and there
are even further opportunities to come
out of Central and Eastern Europe, the
Middle East and Africa, which are all
still developing markets. In the US the
big impact has come around the Black
Friday period, which is the first shopping
day after Thanksgiving. In 2006 and
2007 certain vendors really developed
deals and special offers that helped swell
volumes and educate the market. Hitting
certain prices points has really driven
the market forward, though pressure on
margins is more intense than ever. Asia
is such a fragmented market that it is difficult to discern an all-encompassing
trend. There are highly developed markets,
such as Korea and Japan, which have
their own local vendors, and then there
is China and India, which have been
identified as critical emerging markets.
The Oceania countries are also at
various stages of development as well.
What is the common thread to
the Canalys Navigation Forum
2008, spread across four
venues in three continents?
The common thread is about establishing
a premier independent meeting place for
those involved in the navigation industry in
each region. It is about discussing market
growth, progression and challenges.
We hope to continue to consolidate our
position as the industry’s leading provider
of research, which in turn will contribute
to the planning, forecasting and analysis
of future opportunities for growth and
expansion in mobile navigation.
Steve Brazier is the President & CEO of
Canalys - the fast-growing think-tank
that provides research and analysis of
trends in global high technology markets.
Canalys delivers its highly-valued analysis
through continuous services, consulting
projects, reports and custom presentations.
Steve’s work spans the full range of the
company’s specialisation areas, including
mobile devices, PCs, security, networking,
servers, storage, fixed and mobile telephony
and the digital home. He has led Canalys to
make it one of the most respected analyst
firms working in the field of technology
convergence, by operating across the
boundaries that sit between the IT, telecoms
and consumer electronics industries.
Steve Brazier is the President & CEO of Canalys on
trends and challenges in navigation market
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