TomTom co-founder Corinne Vigreux: Automated driving will solve many problems

A: In the early 1990s when computers were not that popular, we were very good at designing very easy to use software. Then we went from B2B software to B2C software with Palm Pilots and PDAs. Then we started making navigation software for those kinds of products. Then we pivoted again and made a hardware product and became a very large organisation going from Euro 40 million to Euro 1.5 billion and started selling millions of products. We created the category that allowed people to go from A to B with satellite navigation. In 2008, we went public, but the four founders still have held their shares and run the business. We now have a very diversified business though we still sell satnav. Our technology is licenced by Apple, Uber and Microsoft.

Q: Have the consumer touchpoint for navigation devices changed because of smartphones? Is this a challenge or an opportunity?

A: In 2008, a lot happened around the same time. We had sold a lot of devices and the market was becoming mature. Then Google gave turn-by-turn navigation for free. We pivoted again by investing in technology. Today, SatNav is still very big and we ourselves sell over 3 million products a year. The market could grow to 10 million units in around five years and be worth about Euro 500 million. It is still a substantial business as a lot of customers like having a dedicated device. Then you also have systems built in the cars and that is also getting bigger along with the SatNav on phones. We have diversified by supplying the technology for maps, apps and traffic information. In a way, we are specialists in everything navigation. We are competing with Google, but there are just three of four players in the space.

Q: Are you also seeing an opportunity in the automotive space with smarts cars coming?

A: It is huge for us and we are very well placed to play a major role in this entire urban mobility revolution. We are heavily invested and are one of the big players in developing high definition maps. We have a lot of engineers concentrating on autonomous driving and believe there will soon be a big need for high-definition maps. We are using AI and deep learning for object recognition with computer vision to complement the offering.

TomTom is currently concentrating on the navigation side and have been investing for the long term.

Q: Is there is a need to customise navigation technologies for specific geographies? How do you tackle that?

When we came to India a decade back, we navigated differently here using points of interest and not address entries. We did the same thing in Russia. A lot of countries have their own specificities; so sometimes we develop the technology ourselves or we work with local partners. What is important is that we have a global offering of navigation, maps and traffic information. So we are very much a global player too.

Q: How important is India?

We do mainly R&D in India. It is a smaller car market with just 30 million vehicles, but one that is growing fast. We have a thousand people here, so it is the second largest research centre for us. We have our map making infrastructure here. One of the things we are doing here is real-time map making. We came to Pune because of the universities that let us recruit good people. When it comes to commercial it is not in our top ten markets. As India moves towards electric cars there will be a big requirement for our technologies and we will be there early.

Q: How do you see the wearables market shaping up?

We announced recently that we are concentrating on the navigation side and have been investing for the long term. I think the wearables segment has seen a lot of changes recently. The activity tracker market, for instance, has some challenges. We have decided to focus on the runner community and have just released a very important application to keep people motivated and gamifying it a little bit.

Q: Is it right to say the wearable market opportunity hasn’t panned out the way companies perceived it?

A: Yes, it is right to say that. We saw a big surge in the US for activity trackers, but that interest is fading away.

Q: What are the areas you will focus on in coming years?

A: I am very happy that we were able to trigger a revolution by bringing satellite navigation to a hundred million people all over the world. For a company that started with four people that is pretty amazing. What I am super excited about is that we now have unique technologies to participate in the big urban revolution. I am a big believer that when technology solves a big problem it gets accepted by the people. If I look at automated driving, it will solve a problem, the problem of pollution in cities, traffic and will help with public transport and fewer people will die on the road. With the knowledge we have TomTom is set to play a big role in this revolution and we are super excited about that.

Q: How does it feel to have been the trigger to have created a technology that changed the way we work?

A: Brilliant. When you are an entrepreneur you take a risk. You keep on pushing the envelope and see if there is a better solution. I can see myself and all our people work towards a better urban mobility.