Interview with Dan Bartel, Garmin VP WW sales

[+g-o-cashers]

Here's a link to an interview with Dan Bartel, a name that has come up here in the forums before!

 

Nothing too remarkable except the last few questions about Garmin's % of the outdoor GPS market. Bartel claims 90% -- wonder if that is really true?

 

GO$Rs

[+The Hungry Caterpillars]

If that is true and Garmin as you say are aware of it that does explain a lot about their attitude towards the outdoor market.

In effect no competiton that leads to complacency and products that are released on an unsuspecting public whilst still in beta testing or worse.

They need some proper competition obviously which should sharpen them up a little if not a lot.

You do get the feeling that one part of Garmin may well be letting the side down.

Time to get it sorted.

[robertlipe]

Its hard to find accurate numbers as different groups categorize PNDs, handhelds, outdoor products, sporting products, and so on differently. For example, is a waterproof datalogger used for geotagging or trail collection, but with no screen or keyboard an "outdoor product"? (Rhetorical question - don't debate that here.)

 

From my view in GPSBabel development of watching support traffic, feature requests, and blogs mentioning us and so on, I'd have guessed that number to be a little optimistic but certainly not outright smack-talk.

 

You've been in the forums enough to name the competitors in this segment of the outdoor business. Based on traffic here, do you find that number really shocking? In other corners of the outdoor business, like the sporting products (Edge, Forerunner, etc.), their dominance is even more severe.

 

Whether it's 70% or 90% doesn't matter a huge amount, I suppose. I have no trouble at all believing they're selling more units than everyone else combined. So whether that's 5x as many as number two or 6x as many as number two isn't that interesting to me.

[+Renegade Knight]

...

Nothing too remarkable except the last few questions about Garmin's % of the outdoor GPS market. Bartel claims 90% -- wonder if that is really true?

...

 

Close enough to true, except their misteps are opening the door for some of the competitors he didn't mention to swallow 20% of the market in one fell swoop. Of course that would mean the competitors have to be awake at the switch.

[+NOV8TR]

I can't help but wonder how many Colorado and Oregon users jump ship when the Delorme PN-40 comes out and lives up to it's marketing hype? For that matter, I'm sure all of us with the MTK chipset will be watching this closely! 90% today? Maybe. But 90% 6 months from now? We'll see!

[+The Hungry Caterpillars]

I do feel Garmin are living dangerously at least in the outdoor market.

One good well supported product from another company could well take over the role Garmin claims for itself.

There are a lot of very disgruntled customers out there just waiting to jump ship and after the Colorado who can blame them?

[+Redwoods Mtn Biker]

I expect the 90% figure is accurate. Magellan has self-destructed, and while DeLorme has some mind share here, most of the folks interested in handheld GPS don't even know about the PN-20, much less the PN-40. Simply put, Garmin has marketing power. I do agree that they are creating some opportunities for other players, but it's a tough row to hoe.

[Grasscatcher]

I can't help but wonder how many Colorado and Oregon users jump ship when the Delorme PN-40 comes out and lives up to it's marketing hype? For that matter, I'm sure all of us with the MTK chipset will be watching this closely! 90% today? Maybe. But 90% 6 months from now? We'll see!

 

I'm sure there will be quite a few G & M users jump........but it will definitely be out of the frying pan into a smaller pan on a hotter fire! Don't let my disappointment influence you. Do your own investigation , read, ask, try and decide for yourself.

 

All you have to do is go to the Delorme forums and carefully pay attention to the problems/questions that get raised and more carefully to the answers or "non answers". Portions of questions that fall in line with the "marketing hype" and can be "favorably" answered are handled but others are conveniently sidestepped or ignored. This applies to hardware issues as well as software issues/capabilities. Don't assume anything.....ask, and you'll find some big surprises.

 

I was really hoping that Delorme as a company had changed, but, in their own forum, there are multiple indicators otherwise. The "listening to the customer" hype that they are promoting is only very superficial. You shouldn't have to be willing to "believe" their way is the only way and "settle for" extremely limited software.

[+DENelson83]

Here's a link to an interview with Dan Bartel, a name that has come up here in the forums before!

That link doesn't work. It brings up an "access restricted" page.

[+TotemLake]

 

I was really hoping that add_your_disaappointment_here as a company had changed, but, in their own forum, there are multiple indicators otherwise. The "listening to the customer" hype that they are promoting is only very superficial. You shouldn't have to be willing to "believe" their way is the only way and "settle for" extremely limited software.

Same thing can be said of any company once you have a bad taste in your mouth. I'm disappointed in Magellan by experience, and in Garmin by review in the last two products put out. No one company is going to be perfect. The ultimate difference I see is evident by how many times you see a rep responding here in these forums.

Magellan 0

Garmin used to be active but no longer. From what I've read, they seem to be backing off of live representation also.

Delorme is pretty active whether you like their answers or not.

Edited September 17, 2008 by TotemLake

[+g-o-cashers]

Text:

 

Early September on the IFA tradeshow in Berlin, Dan Bartel, vice president worldwide sales at Garmin was keen on spending a bit of time with us to answer a few questions.

 

Dan Bartel joined Garmin in 1992 as Technical/Survey Sales Manager. In December 1993, he moved to Romsey, England to manage Garmin Europe. After a five-year stint in Europe, Bartel returned to the United States as Director of Consumer Electronic Sales where he managed Garmin's North American consumer sales efforts. In his current position, Bartel is in charge of worldwide sales for all consumer market segments of the company. He also assumes the position of managing director for Garmin Europe. Prior to joining Garmin, Bartel spent seven years in the US Air Force and served in various sales positions at Global Navigation, an avionics manufacturer.

 

Interview with Dan Bartel, vice president worldwide sales at Garmin

GPS Business News: What are you launching today at IFA?

Dan Bartel: We are basically updating our entry level n?vi product line with a range of traffic compatible devices with Bluetooth hands-free kit and with Text to Speech technology. We are also launching new devices in what I would call a semi high-end range, the n?vi 700 series.

 

In the United States these products are sold with a lifetime traffic subscription. The subscription will be paid by advertising, but obviously these are very unobtrusive ads which do not distract the driver. We have been working closely with NAVTEQ in implementing this solution. NAVTEQ is providing the advertisers to us.

 

GPS BN: You have been also recently launching the n?vi 500 models, a crossover device offering both on-road and off-road navigation. However you have been pretty late to launch this kind of crossover device, were you afraid of cannibalizing your outdoor product range?

DB: No, I think there are two key reasons: first we did not think there was a market before and second they have been hardware constraints. Because waterproof products tend to be more bulky we have been working until we were able to deliver both a waterproof casing and an attractive form factor which is much closed to our existing PND range.

 

Interview with Dan Bartel, vice president worldwide sales at Garmin

GPS BN: With the n?vi 500 you are also targeting the scooter market in Europe with a special mount, what are your expectations on that segment?

DB: To be very frank with you we don't know. When we launched our motorbike product, the Zumo, it took a bit of time but now it is becoming standard. What is sure is that there is a huge market potential for navigation on scooters in Southern Europe and in Asia. Just a single example: in Taiwan half the people in our factory come to work on scooter.

 

GPS BN: What do you think about emerging markets? Where do you see the biggest opportunities today outside of Western Europe and the U.S.?

DB: Eastern Europe has been our fastest growing market worldwide with 150% growth year on year. Russia is getting to be huge too. However, Canada is today our second fastest growing market. We have also a big presence in China where we have maps but it is not a big market yet. In India we do not have yet cartography and I think it will take a while to develop. We have also seen pockets of success in the rest of Asia: for example we are doing quite well in Thailand but not much in Malaysia. In South America we have also seen good results even if we only have maps for Mexico and Brazil.

 

GPS BN: And what about Australia?

DB: In Australia we are now in third position on the market: Navman and TomTom have about 30% market share each and we have gained about 20%. We have set up our own organization during this summer. We have 20 people now. Having our own team allows us to be much more reactive. For example, Australian consumers are interested in speed camera warnings, something we did not have so far, but because we have our own people now we are going to make it available in a matter of weeks.

 

Continued...

 

Interview with Dan Bartel, vice president worldwide sales at Garmin

GPS BN: With the strong price erosion on the PND market it seems it is more and more difficult to make money on hardware only. The strategy of your number one competitor, TomTom, is more and more oriented towards services. What is your take on that?

DB: We believe there is still money to be made on hardware. We see a lot of benefit in vertical integration. We have a better control of the quality. We have also the flexibility on having small runs of production. Let's take an example. As you know our n?vi have a grey casing. Very recently we had a request for ten thousands black units from a Spanish customer. We can do it. We can dedicate a production line for this purpose. These units will be available for this customer in October.

 

GPS BN: What about the outdoor GPS market? It seems Garmin was a bit sleepy on this market last year (19% revenue growth) and this year there seems to be a real boom (54% revenue growth recorded in the second quarter).

DB: There are several factors. I think the economies of scale made on the PND market are benefiting other markets, including the outdoor. But first and foremost new products and innovation drive this business. We have launched a new running product, a new biking product and also a range of innovative handhelds for hiking. All these innovations drive the market forward.

 

Interview with Dan Bartel, vice president worldwide sales at Garmin

GPS BN: looking at the outdoor market, in one hand there are handhelds GPS for hiking and in the other hand there are sports products, what is roughly the size of each in your business?

DB: They are about the same size.

 

GPS BN: What is roughly your market share today on the GPS handhelds?

DB: In the handheld GPS I believe our market share is about 90%.

 

GPS BN: Did you say nine-zero? That's huge!

DB: You know there are not so many players around. There is Magellan, there is also Lowrance but they have not really updated their product line recently. That's about it.

 

GPS BN: Dan Bartel, thank you very much.

DB: My pleasure.

[+DavidMac]

In the United States these products are sold with a lifetime traffic subscription. The subscription will be paid by advertising, but obviously these are very unobtrusive ads which do not distract the driver. We have been working closely with NAVTEQ in implementing this solution. NAVTEQ is providing the advertisers to us.

 

IMO... worst. idea. ever.

 

This has to be some sort of joke, right? I would NEVER even consider buying a GPS unit that had any form of advertising built in. I've been a fan of Garmin products for years, and have recommended them to many people, but because of things like this I'm starting to reconsider where my loyalties lie.

[+g-o-cashers]

Nope, this has been out for a few weeks now...

 

http://gpstracklog.typepad.com/gps_tracklo....html#trackback

 

GO$Rs