Garmin Disappointed By Nuvifone Sales

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GPS pioneers Garmin announced during their quarterly financial statement that they’re pretty disappointed with the sales of their nuvifone – their line of smartphones that’s being produced between them and ASUS. Currently, they’re offering four different models of the nuvifone, but those aren’t enough to help Garmin who posted a dreadful quarterly report overall.

It’s no secret that Garmin and their PND (personal navigation devices) have been hurt by the free turn-by-turn GPS apps from Google and Nokia. The Garmin-ASUS Nuvifone was seen as Garmin’s attempt to say on the cutting edge with this new GPS market. It’s worth stating, however, that Garmin also has a large business producing GPS units for aviation and that business is well.

Although Garmin still posted a profit in Q4 2009, the stock market is all about growth and Garmin lost profit margins vs. Q3 2009, which caused their stock price to lower (ironically, after the stock’s price dropped, speculators rose the price to 10% above where it was on a day where the tech sector lost 2% overall).

Garmin admitted during the conference call that they’re being hurt by the smartphone turn-by-turn apps, and they expect their personal navigation units to fall in sales by another 4% this year.

Garmin vowed to spend more money developing future models of the nuvifone for future versions. Financial analysts told Reuters that they expect Garmin to spend money on more R&D and to give the nuvifone another year to determine if they can play in the smartphone market.