Google deal with car manufacturers – a big blow not just for TomTom

Published on: September 19, 2018 / Update from: September 19, 2018 - Author: Konrad Wolfenstein

Shares in TomTom fell by 30% after it was announced that Google will equip the vehicles of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance with its navigation system.

The sad decline of a once brilliant technology

Until now, car manufacturers had preferred their own or independent navigation systems - and therefore with TomTom. Now Google has its foot in the door and has probably broken the dam. Other vehicle manufacturers will follow sooner or later. Google is too powerful with its Google Maps and Google Earth technology, as the diagrams (further below) from Google Trends impressively prove.

TomTom and Google Assistant

With the installation of the Android infotainment system, Google has once again taken a strategically important step. Another milestone in his company policy, because the integration of the Google Assistant should also play a prominent role in the still young market of voice assistant systems. A smart step, where the other intelligent voice assistants from Amazon with Alexa, Apple with Siri and Microsoft with Cortana will lose out and will experience losses in market share if they do not make further strategic decisions themselves against Google's trend.

The Auto Alliance assumes that they will collectively sell around 14 million vehicles in 2022 - more than any other industry alliance in this sector.

Analyst Jos Versteeg from asset manager InsingerGilissen: “This makes TomTom’s efforts to compete with Google and Apple in the automotive industry pretty hopeless.”

When Google appeared with Google Maps at the beginning of 2005, TomTom had no real sustainable strategy to offer

TomTom Visibility Index – When TomTom was still the name of the game for route planning

Which voice assistant is currently ahead?

Which language assistant dominates in which regions