A few years from now, little kids are going to start asking, “Wait, you mean people used to have a separate GPS device instead of just using their phones??”
Yep, it was inevitable. Within the last 2 years, the stock price of Garmin, the country’s #1 GPS company, has dropped from $51 to $29.
Now, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch has downgraded Garmin. It now categorizes the stock as “underperform,” and it now expects the price to go as low as $26.
Most smartphones now have GPS technology built-in, and many of them have turn-by-turn direction software. Android phones have Google’s new Navigation software, and the iPhone can basically double as a GPS device.
Forbes has not been recommending Garmin for nearly 2 years. The company may have found a second home with its new Garminfone, a mobile phone with Garmin software built-in, but it’s needless to say that the market of standalone GPS systems is slowly slipping away.
