> Industrial News > News   Digital Navigation to Boom in 2007; Auto Makers Brought into Differentiate Competition   AutoNavi on the Forbes China Best Small and Medium-sized Enterprise List (Shanghai, Feb. 2007) AutoNavi, the leading digital navigation map and location-based service provider in China, due to its rapid development and outstanding performance, is positioned at the top 100 of Forbes China Best Small and Medium-sized Enterprise List. The company ranked the 59th on the list as the only representative of the navigation industry. The list was figured out by Forbes China after detailed research on more than 10,000 unlisted companies and over 300 listed SMEs both from China and overseas. These 100 Chinese enterprises had been growing and making profit impressively during the past 3 years, and their turnover were between RMB 5 million to 800 million. Just as Mr. Liu Ruiyang, the list project leader says, “the proper orientation, independent R&D capability, and the industrial cluster advantages were what made AutoNavi stand out.” AutoNavi, though established late in 2001, has a core team of 15 years’ experience in digital mapping. Its efforts for decades has won itself customers like BMW, Audi, Benz, GM, VW, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and other key auto makers. In 2006, the company’s market share of OEM in-vehicle navigation auto production line field was over 50%. At the 2006 China passenger vehicle market, at the same time when AutoNavi made rapid progress forward, its navigation database was adopted by many auto makers as the edge tool of differentiate competition. As put by Mr. Liu Yuehai, Executive Director of Business Trade Department & Marketing Department of Shanghai GM, consumers are obviously interested in the “won’t-get-lost” Buick cars, and the hi-tech product image tallies with the company image of Shanghai GM, actively promoting the sales. In addition to the above markets, AutoNavi also supported Shinco, the domestically known electronic company, to achieve outstanding performance at the portable navigation market. In 2006, AutoNavi became the exclusive map data and location-based service platform partner of China Mobile. With the wireless and portable navigation and positioning services provided via cooperation with China Mobile and China Unicom, as well as the map research service provided via cooperation with Google, Sina.com, Soufun.com, etc, AutoNavi map data was increasingly popular with ordinary people, and its online map service was used for over 120 million times each day. AutoNavi’s sales volume of the digital navigation maps alone surpassed RMB 200 million in 2006, and in 2007, the number will continue to grow with leaps and bounces. “The auto navigation market in China has been launched; the annual sales of digital navigation maps in China is predicted to be more than RMB 1 billion in 2009, and more than RMB 5 billion in 2015”, said Mr. Peter Zhou, Marketing Director of AutoNavi. “Our map data boasts coverage of the whole nation with photographs, video images, and high-accuracy GPS track record of each road, and all our products have been quality-guaranteed with strict field tests of several thousand miles.”   Time:2007-06-25 Source:NaviForum Shanghai News Center Relative