iPhone to kill off standalone sat-navs by 2014?

Consumers are turning to smartphones with built-in satellite mapping to help them get around, rather than buying a standalone personal navigation device (PND).

According to market research firm iSuppli, by 2011, virtually all smartphones will sport built-in GPS functionality, and by 2014 there might be little market left for PNDs.

Just a year or two ago, it was hard to find a phone with built-in GPS functionality that actually worked reliably. Now look at the iPhone 3GS. Users can download all three major GPS applications onto it, including TomTom, Navigon, and iGo My Way, and each can turn the phone into a dependable navigator.

More and more phones offer the same feature and people are using their phones as their primary GPS navigator while driving.

The Palm Pre, for example, also offers a great GPS navigator provided by TelNav.

Nonetheless, for now, the market for PNDs is still going strong. According to iSuppli, PNDs will continue to lead the navigation market in 2009, with some 114 million sets predicted to be in use by the end of the year, compared with 57.8 million navigation-enabled smartphones.

New smartphone models are becoming increasingly suitable for use as navigators due to their larger displays, bigger internal storage, faster processors, and most importantly, the increased number of developers creating apps for them. As a matter of fact, all current navigation products on smartphones are applications developed by third parties.

iSuppli predicted that thanks to such factors, the number of people who use the iPhone alone as a navigator will increase from just two million in 2009 to 20 million by 2013.

Original article: Study: Smartphones to slay personal navigators from CNET News.com