Fatal Board · VIDEO ESSAY

The Rise and Fall of TomTom: The $6 Billion GPS Giant That Ruled Every Car, Then Lost to Google Maps

Subscribe to the channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb0ps9eCp0y6yP1Xg4sDDFw?sub_confirmation=1 In 2007 a Dutch company that sold a grey plastic box on a suction cup was worth 6.27 billion euros. It had invented the personal navigation device, it owned half the road data on Earth, and it was the most valuable technology company in the Netherlands. Today the whole of TomTom is worth around 520 million. This is the full story of how TomTom ruled every car on the road and then erased itself. Two Amsterdam graduates writing dictionary software for pocket organisers in 1991. Eight million euros of sales in 2002, seven hundred and twenty million in 2005. The TomTom GO of March 2004, the first all-in-one satnav, and the ritual that came with it: unclip the box, wind the cable, wipe the suction ring off the glass before the thieves see it. Then the decision. TomTom never owned a road. Its maps were licensed, and there were only two map databases in the world worth having — Tele Atlas and Navteq. When Nokia bought Navteq for $8.1 billion in October 2007 and Garmin came over the top with a $3.3 billion counter-bid, TomTom paid 2.9 billion euros for Tele Atlas to make sure nobody could take its map away. Weeks later the financial crisis arrived, and TomTom wrote off 1,048 million euros of goodwill in the same year the deal closed. Then came seventy-two days in 2009. On 17 August TomTom put its navigation on the iPhone for 99.99 euros. On 25 September it priced the iPhone car kit at $119.95. On 28 October Google announced free turn-by-turn navigation for Android. Garmin fell 16% that day. TomTom fell 21%. What almost nobody says is that TomTom did not die. It went invisible — inside Microsoft's maps, inside Uber, inside Apple Maps, inside the dashboards of Volkswagen, Renault and Stellantis, under somebody else's badge. The decision that killed TomTom is the same decision that put a map in your pocket for nothing. TOP SOURCES TomTom Annual Report and Accounts 2008 (12 million PNDs, EUR 1.75bn revenue, EUR 1,048m goodwill impairment, 3,498 staff) — https://corporate.tomtom.com/static-files/358d571b-b88f-40c1-b86b-cf2aff944605 Bloomberg, "TomTom Raises Bid for Tele Atlas to EU2.9 Billion", 7 November 2007 — https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2007-11-07/tomtom-raises-bid-for-tele-atlas-to-eu2-9-billion TechCrunch, "Google's New Mobile App Cuts GPS Nav Companies At The Knees", 28 October 2009 (TomTom -21% to $8.11, Garmin -16%) — https://techcrunch.com/2009/10/28/googles-new-mobile-app-cuts-gps-nav-companies-at-the-knees/ TomTom press release, "TomTom app for iPhone now available", 17 August 2009 (EUR 99.99 Western Europe) — https://corporate.tomtom.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tomtom-app-iphone-now-available?ReleaseID=403501 companiesmarketcap, TomTom market capitalisation history (peak EUR 6.27bn in 2007) — https://companiesmarketcap.com/eur/tomtom/marketcap/ FURTHER SOURCES Wikipedia, TomTom — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TomTom Encyclopedia.com, TomTom N.V. (founding, revenue ladder 2002-2005, May 2005 IPO at EUR 17.50) — https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-magazines/tomtom-n-v Wikipedia, Harold Goddijn — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Goddijn Wikipedia, Corinne Vigreux — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinne_Vigreux Wikipedia, Tele Atlas — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tele_Atlas This channel is made by an enthusiast who loves business and technology history — nothing more. All videos are for educational and entertainment purposes only and reflect my personal views and interpretations. I research each story carefully using publicly available sources, but errors or omissions can happen. Nothing here is professional, financial, or legal advice, and this channel is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any company mentioned.