Magellan Sold To Mitac (MIO)

One down, a little more to go. I guess the time for consolidation of these companies is around. Since this company is a consolidation of Mio and Navman brands, adding Magellan to the list makes it more interesting. One waits to see how they would merge the different technologies underlying the receivers.

It will be interesting to see what they do.

A lot of people said the new MIO's went downhill when they started using the Navman interface.

Tell that to the Mio users!

Magellan was really asleep at the wheel. They went from the industry leader to an also ran.

It seems that prior to the new 43xx series they hadn't come out with a new unit for quite a long time, while Garmin and TomTom were rolling out new products.

They probably made some sales due to the fact they had a relationship with AAA and had Tourguide data on them.

It's sad. I have a very early non-mapping Magellan handheld somewhere in the basement.

I wonder if the AAA information was part of the deal, or if it is out on the open market?

I couldn't confirm it with a quick search of the Magellan web site but I thought they were a French company. ???

Magellan was sold to Thales (fomerly Thomson) which is a french company.

Hopefully, after this, their customer service will improve.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellan_Navigation

Magellan started as an independent company. It was once owned by Orbital Sciences Corporation, which purchased it in 1994. In 2001, Thales Group purchased the Magellan division of Orbital Sciences for about $70 million and the Company became known as Thales Navigation. Five years later, private equity firm Shah Capital Partners and other investors purchased Thales Navigation for $170 million and the company was officially renamed Magellan Navigation.

Contact Info from the Shah Capital Partners Website:

Mailing Address:
Shah Capital Partners, LP
4800 Great America Parkway, Suite 400
Santa Clara, CA 95054

From the Magellan site About Us:

The Company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California with European headquarters in Carquefou, France.

In 2006, Thales Navigation was acquired by a group of investors led by Shah Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in Santa Clara, California. The company was renamed Magellan and offers its leading consumer GPS solutions under the Magellan brand, and its innovative professional GPS solutions now under the Magellan Professional name.

Also from the Wikipedia article: "Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, with European sales and engineering centers in Nantes, France and Moscow, Russia"

Wikipedia Citation: Magellan Navigation. (2008, December 14). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 00:39, December 16, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Magellan_Navigatio...

Quote from this cnet site news:

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13557_7-10123535-31.html

"On Monday, Magellan Navigation Inc., entered into a definitive agreement to sell its consumer products division to Taiwanese-based MiTAC International Corporation and expects the transaction to be finalized by January 2009, though no specifics were given about the financial terms. As part of the package, MiTAC, which also owns Mio Technology, makers of the Mio Knight Rider GPS and the the Mio C520, will inherit the Magellan RoadMate and Maestro series of portable navigation devices and the Triton series of handheld GPS.

Though Magellan still has a decent retail presence in the United States and comes in third to Garmin and TomTom, the company has been slow to come out with new products and hasn't been able to keep up with the big two in terms of features, innovation, or support. Meanwhile, Mio has struggled with brand recognition in the States. Just how the two companies will integrate remains to be seen, but GPS Business News believes that MiTAC will do away with the Mio brand and build on Magellan's name and customer base. This would probably make the most sense, but either way, it's going to be an uphill battle."

Here's the press release from Magellan's web site.

http://www.magellangps.com/news/releases/viewRelease.asp?id=...

It will be interesting to see which GUI and maps will MIO choose going forward.

"GPS Business News believes that MiTAC will do away with the Mio brand and build on Magellan's name and customer base. This would probably make the most sense, but either way, it's going to be an uphill battle."

This will only work if they improve the customer service and continue to support the existing Magellan units. This will be interesting to watch....

What is Magellan's market share?

The latest data I can find is for 2007.

US:

Garmin 47%
TomTom 19%
Magellan 17%
Mio 7%
Others 10%

Europe:

TomTom 38%
Garmin 19%
Mio Navman 12%
Medion 5%
Others 26%

Then MIO now may be the 2nd in US over TomTom.