Although it may seem that everyone these days has a TomTom stuck to their car windscreen in much the same vein as the fluffy Garfields of the 1980s, the Dutch based company that manufacturers the satellite navigation boxes has seen its profits fall by 83% in the first quarter of 2008.

This suggests that the market for standalone satellite navigation systems maybe diminishing.

Eric de Graaf of Petercam stated:

What we saw for the first time is that selling prices fell, but volumes didn’t improve enough to compensate. It’s a signal the market is getting saturated.

The trend appears to be heading towards devices that can do more than just one thing, such as guide you to destination, especially as GPS becomes more common on mobile phones, with may mobiles now having GPS and Internet, meaning Google Maps allows users to navigate for free.

A recent report stated:

By 2010, Gartner estimates, 500 million cell phones capable of navigation will cell [sic] annually, compared to just 95 million pure navigation devices.

This means that technology is heading down the route of converging on one super device. Rather than having an MP3 player, a mobile phone and a satellite navigation system, consumers want something that caters for all of their needs in one device.