Why did GPS need a presidential order before it worked in cars?
The Global Positioning System began as a United States military program. Civilian access traces back to a disaster. On September 1, 1983, a Soviet interceptor shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, a Boeing 747 that had drifted into Soviet airspace after a series of navigation errors, killing all 269 people aboard.
President Ronald Reagan announced on September 16, 1983 that GPS would be opened to civilian aviation once the system was finished. The signal civilians eventually got, though, was deliberately blurred. A feature called Selective Availability added error to the public signal, and with it switched on a civilian receiver was only guaranteed to land within about 100 meters. That is enough to tell you which highway you are on and not enough to tell you which driveway.
The blur came off at midnight on May 1, 2000. The statement issued that day said that "the United States will stop the intentional degradation of the Global Positioning System (GPS) signals available to the public beginning at midnight tonight," in President Bill Clinton's words. Civilian accuracy improved about tenfold, to a predicted error near 20 meters. Every dashboard navigator sold afterward stands on that one decision.
How did the TomTom Go turn navigation into an appliance?
Consumer satellite navigation before 2004 meant assembling a kit. You ran navigation software on a Palm handheld or a Pocket PC and paired it with a separate Bluetooth GPS receiver. TomTom, founded in Amsterdam in 1991 under the name Palmtop Software, sold exactly that sort of software.
In March 2004 the company shipped the TomTom Go, its first all-in-one unit. Receiver, maps, screen and software came in one box with a suction mount for the windshield. Nothing to pair, nothing to install.
The format worked. TomTom sold 9.6 million devices in 2007 and booked 1.74 billion euros of revenue that year, the high-water mark for the company. None of the underlying hardware was new. Magellan had shipped the NAV 1000, the first handheld GPS receiver aimed at consumers, in May 1989, and Garmin was founded in Lenexa, Kansas in October 1989 as ProNav by Gary Burrell and Min Kao, taking 5,000 orders for its GPS 100 marine receiver at a 1990 trade show. What TomTom added was the decision to stop selling parts and start selling an appliance.
Why did Nokia and TomTom spend billions on map data?
The receivers were commodity parts. The moat was the map. Two companies, Tele Atlas and Navteq, held the verified road data for North America and Europe, built by driving the roads and checking them, and no device maker could recreate that on a competitive timeline.
In 2007 the whole layer was bought out from under the industry in about ten weeks. On July 23, 2007 the Tele Atlas board accepted a 2 billion euro offer from TomTom. On October 1, 2007 Nokia agreed to buy Navteq, a Chicago company with roughly 3,000 employees, at $78 a share, about $8.1 billion. Garmin shares fell around 13 percent on that news, because Garmin was one of Navteq's largest customers and its map supplier had just moved inside a phone company.
Garmin counter-bid 2.3 billion euros for Tele Atlas on October 31, 2007. TomTom raised its offer to 2.9 billion euros, Garmin withdrew, and the deal closed in 2008. Both neutral map vendors that every navigator on the market depended on were now owned by customers. Google went on to build its own road dataset regardless, and MapQuest was learning the same lesson on the web at the same time.
What did free Google Maps Navigation do to Garmin and TomTom?
On October 28, 2009 Google announced Google Maps Navigation beta for Android 2.0: spoken turn-by-turn directions, search by voice, automatic rerouting and live traffic, at no charge. It shipped on the Motorola Droid, which reached United States buyers on November 6, 2009.
Investors did the arithmetic that day. Garmin stock fell about 16 percent and TomTom about 21 percent on the announcement.
The problem was not that Google built a better navigator. It was that Google did not need navigation to earn anything. Navigation drove phone use, phone use drove search, search sold ads. Garmin and TomTom had to charge a few hundred dollars for the same function. There is no price that wins against a competitor treating your whole category as a marketing line. Berg Insight's counts show what followed: worldwide shipments of personal navigation devices fell from 33 million units in 2011 to 28 million in 2012, and to 22 million in 2013.
Which companies still sell car navigators in 2026?
Garmin does, and not as a token line. The Garmin Drive 53 carries a suggested price of $149.99, and the version bundled with a traffic receiver $169.99. Garmin's fiscal 2025 results, published on February 18, 2026, put consolidated revenue at a record $7.25 billion, up 15 percent, with operating income of $1.88 billion and more than 20 million units shipped for the first time. "2025 was another year of remarkable growth and achievement for Garmin with record consolidated revenue," chief executive Cliff Pemble said in that release.
TomTom does not sell them in the United States. The company told autoevolution in 2023 that "we decided to discontinue the sale of personal navigation devices in the US as this market no longer represented a material part of our consumer business." It still sells navigators in Europe, where it launched five new models in 2023,.
Magellan survives as a brand rather than a company. MiTAC International bought the consumer GPS business in 2008 and still sells Magellan RoadMate car navigators and eXplorist outdoor handhelds through MiTAC Digital, alongside its Mio and Navman brands.
Where to find one today. Buying new is the cheap route: the Garmin Drive 53 lists at $149.99, which is less than most dashboard units cost in 2007. If what you want is the 2004 object rather than working navigation, a boxed TomTom Go with its suction mount and charger is collector stock now, and vintage TomTom listings on Etsy are where those turn up.
Why did Garmin survive while TomTom shrank?
Exposure, more than strategy. Garmin spent the 1990s building receivers for aviation, marine and outdoor customers, the places where a phone is a poor substitute: a Cessna panel, a sport-fishing boat, a wet handlebar. Those buyers, including the hikers who made geocaching a reason to own a handheld, never went away. Car navigators were an addition to that business, not the whole of it. Garmin's fitness segment alone brought in $2.36 billion in 2025, up 33 percent, and was the largest single share of company revenue at 33 percent, ahead of outdoor.
TomTom had no such cushion, and has spent the years since rebuilding as a mapping and location software supplier to carmakers and developers. Revenue was 555 million euros in 2025, down 3 percent, with the location technology business at 482 million euros. On June 30, 2025 the company cut 300 jobs, roughly a tenth of its staff, as it moved work toward AI tooling. "With a modernized technology stack, we are becoming a truly product-led company," chief executive Harold Goddijn said.
The category did not die so much as dissolve. The receiver moved into the phone, the watch, the car's own dashboard and the delivery van's fleet tracker. What ended was the single-purpose box stuck to a windshield, and it only ever had a ten-year window: after May 2000, when the public signal got sharp enough to use, and before late 2009, when the phone already in the car started doing the same job for nothing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does TomTom still sell GPS devices in the United States?
No. TomTom told autoevolution in 2023 that it had discontinued the sale of personal navigation devices in the United States because that market no longer represented a material part of its consumer business. TomTom still sells navigation devices in Europe, including five models launched in 2023, and offers United States drivers the TomTom GO Navigation and TomTom AmiGO phone apps instead.
Is Garmin still in business in 2026?
Yes. Garmin reported record consolidated revenue of $7.25 billion for fiscal 2025 in results published on February 18, 2026, up 15 percent, with more than 20 million units shipped. Garmin still sells standalone car navigators, including the Drive 53 at a suggested $149.99, but its largest business is now fitness wearables, at $2.36 billion in 2025.
Who owns Magellan GPS now?
MiTAC International of Taiwan owns Magellan. It bought the consumer GPS business in 2008 and runs the brand through MiTAC Digital, alongside Mio and Navman. Magellan RoadMate car navigators and eXplorist outdoor handhelds are still sold, a far smaller business than the one Magellan built after shipping the NAV 1000, the first consumer handheld GPS receiver, in May 1989.