Garmin® Ltd. Announces Signing of Agreement To Acquire Navigon® AG

Garmin Ltd. and Navigon AG announced today that Garmin Ltd. and the shareholders of Navigon AG have signed an agreement for a subsidiary of Garmin to acquire privately-held navigation provider Navigon AG (“Navigon”).

“This acquisition is a great complement to Garmin’s existing automotive and mobile business.  Navigon has invested significantly in the European automotive OEM business, and we feel that we can rapidly expand our automotive OEM footprint and capabilities through this transaction,” said Cliff Pemble, Garmin’s president and COO.  “With Navigon, we are also acquiring one of the top-selling navigation applications for the iPhone and Android platforms – something that we expect will help drive revenue for the combined company going forward.  Combining Navigon’s and Garmin’s strengths also improves our competitiveness and standing, particularly in Europe.”
 


 

Navigon is headquartered in Germany.  In addition to its automotive OEM and navigation application for smartphones, the company has an estimated seven percent share in portable navigation devices (PNDs) in Europe.  In regards to PNDs, Navigon’s products are known for their compelling design, performance, and innovative software features.“We look forward to sharing expertise, technologies, and relationships between Navigon and Garmin in order to serve more customers, expand product offerings, and lead the market in hardware and software innovation,” said Egon Minar, CEO of Navigon.  “Our two companies each bring complementary strengths to the table, but what we share is a passion for customer satisfaction through innovation.”

Navigon will operate as a subsidiary of Garmin Ltd.  The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Financial terms of the transaction will not be released.
Garmin provides a broad range of in-vehicle electronics for the automotive industry, including automotive grade infotainment and telematics systems, navigation software, and integrated portable navigation systems.

Since its inception in 1989, Garmin has delivered 85 million GPS enabled devices – far more than any other navigation provider.  Garmin’s market breadth in the GPS industry is second to none, having developed innovative products and established a leadership position in each of the markets it serves, including automotive, aviation, marine, fitness, outdoor recreation, tracking, and wireless applications.

Manymoon – a Google Apps Marketplace success story

When we launched the Google Apps Marketplace less than a year ago the goal was to create a vibrant ecosystem and marketplace for independent third party business applications. Today there are hundreds of applications from developers all over the world using Google Apps Marketplace to sell directly to the 30 million Google Apps users at over 3M businesses and higher education institutions. Manymoon is one of the most popular applications on the Google Apps Marketplace, and this week they were acquired by Salesforce.com. Congratulations to Amit, Manav, Alex, and the entire Manymoon team!

Manymoon began investing in Google Apps integration very early and was one of the early adopters ofthe Google Apps OpenID login feature. They were also one of the first to create a Gmail Contextual Gadget. We worked closely with Manymoon to get their application on the Google Apps Marketplace when we launched last March. Manymoon had immediate success, and quickly became one of most popular applications. Listen to what Manymoon co-founder Amit Kulkarni had to say in a recent interview;

“The results have been fantastic. Since the launch of the Google Apps Marketplace in March, we’ve been signing up as many as 1000 new businesses per week … and that’s with no sales or marketing people in our company. These customers are finding us on their own in the Google Apps Marketplace, adding the app and getting engaged with it.”

“Google Apps Marketplace customers upgrade to a premium edition of Manymoon at a 30% higher rate than non-Google Apps Marketplace customers. The best part, however, is that our monthly registrations increased by 150% since the launch of Google Apps Marketplace. And that’s where the Marketplace really excels, it provides large enough volumes to make the Freemium business model work.”

The Google Developer Relations groups loves to work with developers, and help them build great business applications using Google technologies. The Google Apps Marketplace is there to help them sell their applications directly to Google business customers. There is also the Chrome Web Store for web browser applications, and Android Market for mobile apps.

Manymoon is an excellent success story for Google Apps Marketplace and Google Developer Relations, and a nice testament to the value of integrating product features with Google Apps. We are thrilled with their success and happy to see the founders get a great financial exit with the acquisition by Salesforce.com. Most importantly, we are thrilled to see Salesforce.com’s intentions to invest in growing Manymoon on the Google Apps Marketplace, giving Salesforce a new way to work with Google Apps.

Financial exits are great, but there are many other start-ups building successful businesses on the Google Apps Marketplace. Insightly is another amazing success story. In just 3 months they went from coding an idea on nights and weekends, to a best selling app on Google Apps Marketplace. SlideRocket, Aviary, Tungle, Gist, Smartsheet, Outright, MyERP and many others have experienced dramatic growth since joining the Google Apps Marketplace.

See “How To Get Started” on Google Apps Marketplace for more information. See the Google Developer Relations site for links to technical people who can help you. Visit the Google Support Forums for immediate help and answers to your technical questions. Our job is to help developers build great applications, and provide a vibrant marketplace to sell those applications directly to Google customers. Get started today!