Taipei, March 23 (CNA) Taiwan and Europe could jointly tackle the growing market for a new satellite navigation system, given Taiwan’s strength in the field of electronics and semiconductors, a tech expert from the European Chamber of Commerce Taipei (ECCT) said Friday.
Pascal Viaud, co-chair of the ECCT’s Technology Committee, said that the worldwide GNSS (global navigation satellite system) market is growing fast and its revenues are expected to increase at a compound annual rate of 11 percent over the next decade.
The total market value of GNSS-enabled devices is forecast to grow from 133 billion euros (US$176 billion) in 2010 to 167 billion euros this year and 244 billion euros in 2020, according to data released by GNSS Agency (GSA).
“Cooperation between Taiwan and European manufacturers on the road market segment must be considered to address growing markets,” Viaud said at the opening of the 2012 Prototyping Topic of Galileo Pro competition.
The competition has been organized by the European Union (EU) andthe state-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to encourage worldwide innovation in the field of telematics.
Viaud said Taiwanese players are “uniquely positioned to deliver 3D solutions on both front and back-end to European chip designers.”
New technologies developed and industrialized by major Taiwanese players on advanced 3D packaging and system-in-package can also open new doors to European chip makers for integration and multiple GNSS compatibility, he said.
According to GSA, road and LBS (location based services) will become the two market sectors with the highest revenue generated from 2010 to 2020, accounting for 56.4 percent and 42.8 percent of the total revenue during this period, respectively.
The road segment includes personal navigation devices and in-vehicle systems, while the LBS segment includes GNSS-enabled mobile phones and services, the agency said.
Viaud said Taiwan has a strong position in electronics and micro-electronics manufacturing. It also has an integrated supply chain of electronics with China and “go-to-market” expertise in the Greater China area, he said.
A total of 18.06 million cars were sold in China in 2010, and the annual growth of the China automobile market is forecast at 12 percent to 15 percent in the coming years, according to GSA.
The penetration rate of electric vehicles, which include telematics components and systems, will increase from less than 0.5 percent in 2014 to over 6.5 percent in 2020, indicating a lot of business opportunities in the Chinese GNSS-enabled device market, the agency said.
(By Jeffrey Wu)ENDITEM/ pc