TomTom Acquires Navindo, Its Indonesian Joint Venture Partner

TomTom as the leading provider for navigation and mapping product on cars has acquired its joint venture partner in Indonesia, PT Navindo according to a press release. Pursuant to the acquisition, of which the value was not made public, the identity of the company will henceforth be PT TomTom Indonesia. It is a strategic move for TomTom to strengthen its position in the Indonesian market as well as in Asia Pacific in general.

TomTom has a main office in Amsterdam with more than 3500 employees around the world, operating in 40 countries. Aside from navigational products, TomTom also has had an app for iOS since 2009. However, there is currently no TomTom map available for Indonesia. In Asia Pacific, TomTom is available for Singapore-Malaysia-Brunei, Thailand, and Hongkong-Macau.

Navindo itself was established in 2003 and been a leader in GPS and navigation system in Indonesia. In March 2010, Navindo Geosat—subsidiary of Navindo—released real time tracking for vehicle based on BlackBerry application. It is interesting to wait whether TomTom will take Indonesian mobile application market as its target and try to compete free applications such as Google Maps and Nokia Maps.