Tom Tom reinvents itself by selling his maps
A little more than a dozen years ago Tom Tom was one of the leading companies in the sale of devices (the famous navigators) that had a built-in map and were connected to the GPS signal to help us drive our car.

Later, mobile phones included the GPS and various applications for driving assistance appeared, which meant that the previous devices were not sold in a very short time. Now everyone uses their mobile.

And consequently Tom Tom was reduced to its minimum expression.

But things have continued to evolve, and new driver assistance systems (which will one day lead to autonomous driving) require accurate and up-to-date maps to function.

And there again Tom Tom is carving out a niche for itself, providing their maps to the companies that supply the new driving aid systems.

Today Tom Tom sells their maps to Apple, Huawei (which is developing a system to be independent from Google), and other companies in the market.

Tom Tom is dedicated to generating their maps, keeping them updated and making them more complete and accurate every day in order to be useful in the case of autonomous driving, and not depend only on the sensors placed in the vehicle.

These driving assistance systems are being used more every day and all the large companies in the automobile industry use them. The take-off in the next ten years is going to be very big and Tom Tom is working with several leaders in that market.

By 2021 the Bosch company will launch a product with Tom Tom’s maps, and something similar is already being done by the PSA group, Fiat-Chrisler, etc …

Tom Tom’s folks have had a rough few years, but the future looks brighter for them.

Time will tell if their expectations are met, but for their persevering work they deserve it.
['Amador Palacios']
['Tomtom', 'Maps']