Text: J Srikant
NNG LLC, one of the leading navigation solutions providers globally, has expanded its portfolio in India by adding new navigation software, ‘iGO Primo Next Gen,’ a highly upgraded version of its earlier product. The navigation devices based on this latest solution will be available in the market from Q4 of 2014.
iGO Primo Next Gen comes with many first time features, which the company claims will complement the way destinations are looked-up in India. One of them is called the natural guidance which is landmark based navigation. “Normal applications will tell you in 200 metres turn right. But this system will tell you to take a turn after a prominent landmark which is how directions are given in India,” explains Peter Bolesza, Vice President, Emerging Markets, NNG. The company is covering around 60 cities in India with this feature.
The new features are focused towards the B2B segment and include a completely new adaptive Human-Machine Interface (HMI) allowing easy customisation for different hardware, screen size and resolution, while also being platform-independent. This makes it compatible with any third-party device. The flexibility of the interface also reduces the time to market which is quite helpful in the automotive industry where cycles are generally long. “One of the biggest changes that affect the automotive industry is mobile phones. Customers are used to the comfort and flexibility of mobile phones and would like the same experience from their car as well. It is these features like clean and fresh user interface, easy-to-use operations that we have tried to merge in the new product,” said Bolesza.
The Hungary based company has all its navigation solutions running on a single engine called ‘iGO.’ This one-engine approach helps the company modify products to meet the varied requirement from different OEMs. “We can cater to the needs of super luxury car brands and a lower segment car with the same software engine while keeping all the features intact. This proves to be extremely efficient and cost effective for us and for OEMs,” claimed Bolesza.
Peter Bolesza,
In India since 2011, NNG chose Ayana Navigation Solutions (ANS) as its strategic partner for launching its products in the diversified Indian market. The Gurgaon headquartered company played a major role in providing market feedback, testing and end-user support for the products which helped engender better localised solutions. Along with iGO primo and iGO Primo Next Gen in its portfolio in India, there is also an ANS branded mobile app available for Android and iPhone which runs on the iGO engine. NNG gives the app as complimentary with the iGO enabled head unit to improve the integration between the smart phone and the navigation device. Today, the company already has its iGO Primo navigation solution running on various aftermarket devices and also on the recently launched Volkswagen Vento Konect. Apart from VW, it also has Tata and Renault as clients at present.
Globally, based on supplier agreements with 16 Tier-1 companies, NNG is working with 30 car brands. Responding to a question on its association with car companies in India, Bolesza told Auto Components India that the company is in touch with most car brands and is working on several projects here. “The next two years is all about this,” he said. However, he refused to divulge names of the car manufacturers due to concerned legalities.
Bolesza specified that one of the main USPs of NNG solutions is that they are independent content providers with the software being compatible with content from any provider. “The partners test different maps, decide which one to integrate and tell us what features are required for that specific country.” In India, NNG has integrated maps from Navteq Maps (renamed Here) and Tomtom with its iGO engine. From next year, almost all aftermarket solutions from NNG will be based on iGO Primo next gen whereas the line-fitted devices, in car models already in the market with iGO Primo system, will continue to come with the same solution.
