Asus and Garmin part ways as their deal ends in 2011

By siliconindia   |   Monday, 25 October 2010, 15:37 IST
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Bangalore: Gramin-Asus will end their deal to make smartphones, by January next year as the two-year co-operation agreement signed by the companies will end in January of 2011. Developments hint that Gramin-Asus will no more exist as a joint venture. The two as of September had made just $27 million in revenue from their Android and Windows Mobile models since shipping their first phones. Apple by contrast made over $8.8 billion on the iPhone just this past summer. Both companies originally united to work on devices starting from nuvifone, which was initially a solo project. Garmin had originally set out to beat the iPhone by making a GPS-focused device that Apple didn't have at the time. Multiple delays wiped out the nuvifone's advantages, and it eventually shipped to AT&T in late 2009 to mediocre sales. T-Mobile was forced to cut the Android-based Garminfone's price after it sold poorly in stores. Asus will go back to making its own digital devices while Gramin will focus back on their healthy game of developing navigation and communicative devices to in marine and aviation sectors.Venturing into smartphone market was not a very inspiring experience for Gramin. With hardware issues, battery recalls and a delayed first model release, Gramin had a tough time in the new turf. Gramin found its smartphone section seriously underperforming in the financial front and was trying aggressively with T-Mobile and other carriers to improve the market share of their products in the competitive smartphone market space. According to Economic-Daily, Garmin and ASUS will not be renewing their two-year partnership this coming January leaving the standalone GPS and failed phone maker out on the cold, hard streets in a world of Android phones with free turn-by-turn. Although the venture will not be renewed, it looks like ASUS will keep trying to make phones and include the Garmin GPS technology on the handset. It really is a wonder how ASUS can think that licensing and including Garmin on an Android device makes any sense at all when approved Android handsets come with Google Maps and Navigation.