LONDON — The personal navigation device market was supposed to be one of the rare consumer electronics sectors that analysts were suggesting would defy the global downturn. But TomTom NV (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), one of the biggest players in the field, is laying off 7 percent of its workforce, or 115 people, and said full-year 2008 revenue is likely to miss expectations after disappointing fourth-quarter sales.
Shrinking demand and falling sales also led the company to lower its sales forecast by up to 9 percent as it added it would take an impairment charge on TeleAtlas, the digital maps group it bought last year for Euros 2.9 billion.
The company stressed Thursday (Jan. 22) the restructuring a does not affect Tele Atlas where reductions are already in progress which will lead to annualized savings of Euros 35 million.
TomTom said it expected to sell slightly more than 12 million units this year, in the lower range of its earlier projections. It anticipated year-end revenues ranging from Euros 1.66 billion ($2.19 billion) to Euros 1.68 billion ($2.21 billion), a drop of 5 percent to 9 percent from its previous guidance.
It added sales in the European and American markets for 2008 were each 1 million units lower that the 18 million it had expected, but said it maintained its market share of 46 percent in Europe and 24 percent in North America, where rival Garmin Ltd. dominates.
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