Automotive Infotainment Trends & Opportunities Driven By Integrated Media Content Availability 2006-21-0067

Providing integrated media content (audio, video, data) is the dominant application for telematics services in the automotive market. For years, the automotive industry has debated the type of service telematics customers would be willing to pay for and the amount they would be willing to pay. Is it safety/security, location-based services, diagnostics, entertainment, or information such as maps, points of interest, stock quotes, sports scores, or weather? We believe the answer is integrated media - the very same content that consumers have been paying for in one way or another for years through audio cassettes, music CDs, and more recently, video and surround sound DVDs. However, going forward, the opportunities for new and unique content are growing rapidly because of the growth of wireless infrastructure and digital electronics innovations. Examples include: satellite digital broadcasting, high bandwidth cellular networks, WiFi and mobile hard disc drives. In this paper, these technology trends and opportunities for the automotive and content service industries will be explored.