2013 was a solid year for TomTom, both operationally and financially. We launched important new products, such as our new PND, and our first
TomTom own-branded GPS sports watch, and we increased the velocity and productivity of our development activities.
We could release our first NavKit-based product this year. The first products based on Navkit were high-end PNDs for the European market. And
NavKit will progressively end up in all of our products, both for consumer and automotive markets.
NavKit is designed to meet the requirements for connected devices, including cars, and comes with both device-centric components and server-based
components for delivery of services and synchronization of content on user settings across multiple devices.
The new map format that supports incremental map updates over year, for always up-to-date for maps for PNDs and automotive applications, are
part of our NavKit product road map.
This technology will solve one of the biggest usability issues for in-car navigation, the difficulties of updating out-of-date maps, and is a critical
component for our new applications, including highly automated driving.
We made material progress in the transition from our existing map making platform to a new, real-time map making platform.
Real-time maps will be seamlessly integrated in our NavKit client and server applications. Real-time maps technology will make our mapping
operations much more efficient. Once transition is complete we can retire our legacy platform completely. And we will benefit from the new
platform incrementally during 2014.
Our new mapping platform allows for substantially improved efficiency and accuracy in the introduction of new highly automated forms of map
making.
In the old world of map making, map improvements only ended up with customers after a long period of time; or never, when customers find it
too hard to update. In the new world, however, updating of maps will happen on a continuous basis, and in the background.
All advantages of having a map stored locally on the device will be retained.
Car makers see this technology as a critical building block for making the highly automated car a reality. New cars are increasingly equipped with
sensors, including cameras and radar, and our aim is to connect the output of those sensors to our real-time mapping production platform for
efficient change detection.
We're also opening up possibilities for hundreds of millions of smartphone users who are using the TomTom maps to contribute to the map making
process in a highly automated way.
Marina will provide further information on the financial highlights, and the financial outlook for 2014, later during this presentation.
In consumer market, our strategy is to maximize the value for the PND category, and to establish a multi-product consumer business.
Our European PND business held up well in 2013. We gained market share and slightly higher average selling prices for PNDs.
North America remains a challenging market for our PNDs. We've been disciplined with pricing, which led to contraction of our market share on
the one hand, and higher profit on the other hand.