Zorro Confident Free GPS Software Download Will Capture Market Share
Giving potential paying customers 48 hours to try out your product is a smart move – especially when you’re an unknown GPS navigation software company trying to break into new territory.
That’s just what ZorroGPS is doing in an attempt to capture a chunk of the European and North American GPS markets.
The company provides "on-board" navigation software that’s compatible with Windows Mobile devices – PNDs, smartphones and GPS mobile phones.
It is already firmly established in China, where it launched a year ago and has its headquarters.
Eric Mergy, CEO of ZorroGPS, told smartphone.biz-news that as a result of a partnership with Ritu Information Systems – which he described as the Chinese equivalent of TomTom – his company would be the leading GPS navigation software provider in China in 2009.
Ritu supports more than 100 device brands and Mergy said it was gradually migrating ZorroGPS’s software to its product range.
"Now we are launching into the European and North American markets, with Navteq as our partner," he said.
"We have a special business model, which is mainly based on Internet downloads for mobile phones."
Free software trial
Mergy said since ZorroGPS is a newcomer and unknown to western consumers, users can download the software for a free 48-hour trial period from 19 January.
He said they were aiming at the mass market and, for that reason, were offering easy-to-use software that was "very cute and attractive".
"People do not know our software, but if they download it we are confident that they will be very happy with it," he said.
Low Price Adds To Product’s Appeal
Mergy, who trained as an engineer, said they are initially offering 28 country packages, with each solution containing detailed regional maps.
ZorroGPS runs NAVTEQ MAPS for Europe, North America and Mexico and Ritu maps for China.
The Frenchman believes their products are bringing something new to what are already fairly mature markets.
"The most obvious thing is price – we are quite low compared to other products," he said.
Key to ZorroGPS’s strategy in these new markets are those customers who buy 3G contract-free handsets.
"There are those who are not interested in paying a high monthly charge with a telecom operator," said Mergy.
"We are targetting customers who buy 3G mobile phones with unlocked SIM cards. In this case they have no navigation software.
"Normally if they want to buy it, it will cost USD $100 for a whole country. We are selling that for USD $20."
ZorroGPS expects to be able to offer its software to RIM handsets within the next six months and then to Symbian-based phones.
Unique Features
Clearly enthusiastic about his company’s potential, Mergy is refreshingly candid about the product.
"We are not saying we are better than anybody else. But ZorroGPS functions very well and at a fifth of the price," he said.
"Based on that we hope to attract people by offering some very attractive and unique features.
"We truly believe we have some very new and interesting functions."
These include being able to using your finger to map scroll during navigation, cartoon navigation, and day-time calculation.
Other features include:
- Calculation speed: 2,000km in 5 secs
- Different user interfaces
- Screen rotation
- POI and text search
- Radar and camera alerts: TTS
- Highway and City guidance
ZorroGPS software is available to download from 19 January, initially for France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the UK.
Over the next few weeks it will be rolling out a total of 28 countries, including the US.
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