LONDON--October 29, 2012:--GM ranks first in ABI Research's OEM safety and security telematics vendor Competitive Assessment performing strongly in the width and depth of the OnStar feature set, market share, quality and reliability. Second placed Ford excels in regional coverage, market share, pricing, and smartphone integration and third placed Toyota scored high on open platforms and ecosystem partnerships.
"OnStar remains the leading safety and security telematics solution in the United States, offering the most complete range of safety and security features, including state of the art emergency calling, roadside assistance, and stolen vehicle tracking, immobilization, and recovery. It is offered as a standard feature on all GM models with one year free subscription," says VP and practice director Dominique Bonte.
OnStar services were launched in China in 2009. Plans were announced to launch OnStar in Latin America and Europe in partnership with Telefonica. GM has 6.4 million subscribers globally, resulting in an overall market share of 24.6%. However, questions remain on the scalability of GM's proprietary technology and its premium business model.
Ford's free hybrid SYNC telematics solution offers E911 emergency calling and remote diagnostics scoring high on regional coverage with SYNC currently used in more than 4 million vehicles in North America. Global expansion is ongoing with SYNC launching in Europe (emergency calling) and Asia in the course of 2012. Its main weakness is quality and reliability due to the dependence on phones.
Rising star Toyota has offered its G-BOOK telematics service in Japan since 2002 but only recently launched telematics in the US (Safety Connect) and China. It scores high on open platforms and partnerships as illustrated by its cooperation with Microsoft to build a global next-generation platform based on Windows Azure cloud technology.
This Competitive Assessment provides a rating of 10 leading OEM Safety and Security Telematics vendors which were analyzed against 12 "innovation" and "implementation" criteria in addition to a market share analysis. These findings are part of ABI Research's Safety and Security Telematics (Safety and Security Telematics) Research Service.
