Nokia offers free navigation to smartphone users by Magdalena Rosova

Have you thought that smartphones are so smart that they can not be any more smarter? If you answered yes, you are wrong. The world's top mobile phone maker, the Finish company Nokia, said it would offer maps and navigation services for its smartphone users for free. This decision puts new pressure in the GPS industry. Jukka Hosio, director of Nokia's services marketing, told reporters that Nokia is offering navigation in 74 countries, in 46 languages. For Nokia smartphone users these maps are free from this moment. Nokia has probably decided for this move because of Google's promise that next year it would offer free navigation to users of Motorola's Droid cellphone model in the United States. Nokia responded quickly and promised free navigation for everyone, not only Americans. This way Nokia threatened key companies in the global navigation market, such as Tom Tom and Garmin. Thanks to smartphones that support navigation these companies suffer a lot. Consultancy f! irm iSupply expected the GPS makret to decrease in 2009. After years of success and big growth iSupply said the market would fall off in the longer term. iSupply further forecast that the market would rebound this year and the following one. In addition Isupply expects the number of smartphone with navigation to exceed the number of GPS devices bz 2014. After Nokia released the news Tom Tom's shares fell 6.96 percent and Garmin's fell 2.72 percent. Nokia takes this step to regain the leading position in the global smartphone market, which it has lost thanks to its rivals such as Apple's iPhone or RIM's BlackBerry.

by Magdalena Rosova for SigEx Ventures (http://sigexventures.com)

SigEx Ventures's matrix of properties are quickly becoming leaders in dig! ital telebroadcasting, free content delivery allowing people t! o easily talk, view, upload and share through free online TV broadcasting, free unlimited global calls, video blogs and SMS. SigEx Ventures invests in projects deploying "free" to add-on royalty revenue models