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GPS Prices Continue Road Trip South
Electronics | Jul 21, 09
Automotive GPS prices seem to be charting a course downward.
I took note of the deterioration in automotive GPS prices a couple of times earlier this year, following a New Year’s rally in this market which proved short-lived (“GPS Can't Navigate To Higher Prices”, “Automotive GPS Prices Driven Down”). The southward trend continues, as noted in our recent press release, which highlighted last week’s 2% decline in the PriceSCAN Automotive GPS – Voice Recognition Index, coming hard on the heels of a 9% drop in June.
Indeed, since the beginning of 2009 this index has dropped by nearly a third. Neither the early summer driving season (which early reports have termed anemic) nor somewhat elevated gas prices seem do being doing much to put the breaks on this slide (note higher gas prices may increase GPS value by raising the cost of fuel wasted while lost or taking inefficient routes).
The GPS price collapse is strikingly illustrated by the Gamin Nuvi 885T, as of this writing the most popular automotive GPS with voice recognition unit on PriceSCAN.com. The lowest vendor offered price on our site was north of $740 in mid February, and has since plunged to around $390.
Time Period: 2/16/2009 through 7/13/2009
Each tick mark represents one week
Red = High Price, Blue = Average Price, Green = Low Price
With no anticipation of imminent revolutionary advances in auto GPS to drive prices lower, one has to suspect economic weakness is resulting in soft consumer demand for this technology, particularly in light of weak auto sales. Until we see some strength in retail, it may not be possible for automotive GPS prices to gain traction, let alone step on the gas.
Posted by jeffrey.trester (Permalink)
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