Taiwanese GPS navigation company Mio is attempting to expand its presence in Australia at the expense of Navman, despite the fact that both brands are now owned by Mitac, a major Asian technology manufacturer.
In recent weeks both brands have rolled out new product offerings with questions now being raised as to whether Mitac actually needs two separate sales and marketing operations in Australia. <\/P>
Currently, Mio operates out of serviced offices in Melbourne and calls to their offices yesterday went unanswered. On the other hand Navman has 40 staff in Australia and the tip is that the Mio brand will be rolled into the Navman sales, support and marketing operations in Sydney. In addition, Navman Australia has stronger and more capable marketing operations than Mio in Australia. <\/P>
They are also expanding in both the vehicle and boating markets and were recent sponsors of the Sydney motor show.
Wendy Hammond the National Marketing Manager at Navman said, “It is early days. I suppose it makes sense to combine both brands. We have 40 staff and are expanding. We are also investing extensively in online and events like the Sydney Motor Show.”<\/P>
A spoksperson for a major national retailer said, “We need less brands not more. More brands mean more training and in the navigation market 3 makes sense not 4. The Mio brand is the weakest link and is the one that should be killed off. For retailers, the problem is training and high staff turnover. So the less brands we have to train staff in the better”.<\/P>
<\/DIV>
Both Peter Ferrigno National Sales Manager for Mio and Daniel Antonello National Marketing Manager for Mio failed to return SmartHouse calls.
In today’s technology market, the stuff inside the boxes is getting increasingly similar and this is no more evident than with navigation where every vendor is using one of 24 global GPS to deliver information to a device.<\/P>
For Taiwanese manufacturers brand is critical – Acer and BenQ are two technology brands that have managed to cut through in the IT space and now Mitac is relying on the Navman and Mio brands to give it share of the fast growing navigation market. <\/P>
Taiwanese companies initially had little consideration for their own branding and other marketing finesse. There are several early contenders still with us: Acer and Mitac have learned a thing or two about marketing over the years, as well as Viewsonic and AOC in monitors or Leadtek in graphics cards. <\/P>
A few others were just as strong at the very start – remember Tatung, with monitors, servers and even SPARCstation RISC workstations? Or FIC’s LEO brand, well known in early ’90s, and all but forgotten today?<\/P>
<\/DIV>
Globally Mio is a number 4 player in the GPS navigation market. Mio parent company Mitac acquired rival handheld GPS maker Navman in February of this year.<\/P>
The sale saw Navman parent Brunswick rid itself of the Navman-branded handheld and in-car devices operation. <\/P>
In Europe, Mio has ten per cent of the GPS market, Navman eight per cent, giving Mitac a combined share of 18 per cent, putting it effectively in second place behind TomTom and ahead of Garmin. Mio and Navman both have strong brands, and ditching either risks losing overall marketshare.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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