Telematics is growing steadily in many different fields, from parents keeping track of their kids, to insurers giving discounts to everyone, and fleet managers making sure that the closest person gets sent to the job site, there’s a lot of people taking advantage of the technology. However a lot of consumers still aren’t aware of it and if they already know of it, it’s not always the technology they’re looking forward to the most. To find out what are the most requested in-car infotainment features, market analysis firm Frost and Sullivan asked 1,600 consumers in the US and UK to find out what they thought of the industry’s future.
“The connected car market is evolving at a pace much higher than the traditional automotive industry,” states Frost & Sullivan research manager Praveen Chandrasekar (via MachinetoMachine Magazine). However, he said that often it wasn’t telematics that had people the most excited. “Consumers sadly are not in the centre of this evolution. Over 34 percent of said interviewees were interested in steering wheel controls as an input HMI feature, which marks the highest figure in the survey. The second most appealing feature was wireless charging at 27 percent. Interestingly, over 15 percent of embedded navigation owners in the United States surveyed in the research reported they prefer using smart phone apps for navigation largely because they find the content trustworthy and the app easy to use”.
While this doesn’t necessarily tell us what impact these technologies would have if those asked were making a purchasing decision, it does give some indicator about the technologies they’re most aware of. As Chandrasekar puts it, the automotive industry is not doing a good enough job of informing consumers about many infotainment features, specifically telematics.
To help address this, on 9th July at 4PM BST, Frost and Sullivan will be holding a web conference for all automotive businesses to try and address this issue. It will discuss things like customer satisfaction, awareness and sales tactics to encourage consumers to pay for telematics hardware up front even if the benefits may take some time to notice.
Other aspects of the industry that will be addressed during the call, will identify whether your customers are interested in investing in higher quality of in-car entertainment features, like applications, smart phone integration, navigation and media viewing and if not, why not and how you can address those issues.
If you’d like to take part in the conference, you need to email Julian Borchert, current head of corporate communications at Frost and Sullivan with your full contact details. He can be contacted at: Julian.Borchert@frost.com.
About Frost and Sullivan
Frost and Sullivan has been operating for over 50 years, offering advice and marketing help to clients in the public and private sectors, helping them prepare for new waves of investment and industry developments, keeping them on top of new and emerging technologies and making sure they stick to best business practices throughout company growth cycles.
Image Source: Karlis Dambrans
