set up to support. In 1991, the Robinson brothers came across an advertisement for a hand-held GPS unit from a company called Magellan. After making contact with Magellan, the Robinsons were quickly made aware that the emerging GPS market was seeking for a high stability frequency reference, in a small package available in volume (which at the time was tens of thousands of units). Initial samples were approved, and volume orders placed shortly afterward. Rakon immediately began approaching all the major GPS suppliers in North America, and within a couple of years, was supplying frequency references widely in the GPS industry. Rockwell had been instrumental in the development and deployment of the GPS system and were the technology leaders at the time. Public listing Rakon continued to focus on developing products for the GPS market. In 2006, they claimed to still hold over 50% market share in the autonomous GPS market (GPS which functions without assistance from the CDMA phone network). There had been massive growth in the number of GPS devices available between 1990 and 2006. In early 2006, Rakon announced they would list on the New Zealand stock exchange, and on 13 April, released their IPO prospectus. The IPO generated a lot of interest in the New Zealand market and although no official numbers were released the listing was heavily over subscribed. The IPO price was $1.60 and shares commenced trading on 16 May at $2.30 per share. On 16 May 2007 the share price opened at $5.30 and reached a high a few days later of $5.80. Rakon is often referred to in media as the share market darling, although some commentators point to the lack of other high growth stocks on the NZX as a reason for Rakon's popularity. Overseas expansion and recent financial performance In March 2007, Rakon acquired the frequency-control products division of C-MAC Microtechnology. This acquisition gave Rakon a European-based operation, including 2 factories located in the UK and France. The new business unit specialised in other forms of wireless communications and allowed Rakon to become less dependent on the GPS market, and expanded Rakon's product range greatly to include oven-controlled crystal oscillators (OCXO), voltage-controlled crystal oscillators (VCXO), the Pluto ASIC and a range of low performance commodity products. In 2008 Rakon formed a joint venture with (Centum Electronics) to manufacture high value telecommunications infrastructure products and to commercialise Rakon France's R&D programme.