Apart from the Nuvi 710 and the Nuvi 200W swapping 2nd and 3rd places, there is no change from last months top 5 ranking. The Nuvi 200 and 200W are still selling well, mostly due to heavily discounted prices as stores desperately try and get rid of their old stock.

Despite the similarly aggressive pricing of the Navig8 GPS-580 units, JNC has finally dropped off the list. Not surprising in my opinion, as buyers come to realise that, just as with most other electronic devices, quality is always king. JNC have never quite got a handle on the fact that they should stick to what they do best and leave the GPS market to the GPS specialists.

1 - Garmin Nuvi 200
2 - Garmin Nuvi 710
3 - Garmin Nuvi 200W
4 - Garmin Nuvi 205W
5 - Garmin Nuvi 205
6 - Garmin Nuvi 760
7 - TomTom XL Southern Africa
8 - TomTom One Southern Africa
9 - Garmin Nuvi 215W
10 - Garmin Nuvi 310 - (Unit has been discontinued in SA)

TomTom is now making strong headway with both the XL and the TomTom One showing up in 7th and 8th positions respectively. I suspect that we will be seeing more of TomTom in the coming months as they improve their customer support and expand their product range in SA.

The cheaper end of the market continues to provide the bulk of the GPS sales in SA with the Nuvi 2xx series units trumping all others by quite a large margin. We are seeing a lot of first time buyers as the “typical” market now expands to include housewives, students and general delivery drivers. I am sure that this trend will continue as more and more of our customers come to depend on their GPS navigation units to do what they are meant to do (help you find your way) and not just as a gimmicky “gadget” to show off to their friends.

The new Garmin Nuvi 215W makes it’s first appearance on the list as buyers catch on to the fact that this is a brilliant, cheap, functional GPS Street Navigator without all the “fancy bells and whistles” of the high end units but with bluetooth! This is a great little middle of the range unit and I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of them on this list from now on.

The Garmin Nuvi 310 has also dropped to 10th place after news during November that the unit was being discontinued. Being such a popular unit though, means that there are quite a few stores around with high stock levels of these units. Expect to see prices of this unit drop as well as the stores try and get rid of their stock.

[Please Note: This information is based on figures from the monthly GfK Retail Reports. GfK Retail and Technology tracks the sales of consumer durables through monthly retail audits done on model level, this audit is carried out across all relevant channels of distribution. GfK currently tracks and reports on 45 product categories within the consumer electronic, domestic appliances, telecoms, IT, gaming and Sports markets. These reports are free of charge to any retailer participating on the GfK Retail Panel. Gismap GPS Shop is part of the GfK Retail Panel. For more information, please contact GfK on: (011) 803 1300 or www.gfkrt.com. (Disclaimer - The views and opinions expressed by the authors on this website/blog do not necessarily reflect the views of GfK Group, GfK RT South Africa or any of its affiliate companies.)]

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