Brits snap up sat-nav

Sales of satellite navigation systems (sat-navs) have rocketed over the past five years, according to an annual report.

Mintel’s in-car technology report found that British motorists spent £340 million on the devices in the last year compared to £5 million in 2002. This figure overtook sales for CD players for cars for the first time which now account for £230 million of sales.

Katy Childs senior market analyst at Mintel put this rise down to the fact that they were a “simple solution to the age old problem of trying to map read and drive on your own”.

“Sat-nav systems are also becoming increasingly popular because they are coming down in price and are easily updated via the internet,” she said.

“The fact that they are portable devices, and are not necessarily built into the car, [also] means that even if you have more than one car in the family you can just have one sat nav system to share, again making them much better value for money,"

The other big growth identified in the report was in-car DVD players, which rose from sales of almost nothing five years ago to £26 million. £20m was also spent on in-car MP3 players and iPods.

However, not all in car gadgets were as successful. Camera detection units failed to make an impact in the market making up just three per cent of the market. This, Mintel said was because of confusion over the new amendments the made to the Road traffic act this year.

In 2006 the Road Traffic Act stated intentions to ban units which told drivers if a mobile laser gun was pointing at the car. Early in 2007 this came into effect making it illegal to use such radar units.

However, units that have a database of fixed and regular mobile laser gun locations in them are still legal.