UBS Warburg Study Predicts New Role for U.S. Telematics Aggregators.(Brief Article)

The role of U.S. telematics aggregators appears to be changing according to a new study by UBS Warburg, a leading global financial services firm. According to the report, today's stand-alone telematics systems will soon be just another component in vehicles. Currently, today's major players are at various stages of acceptance of this shift.

The report, "U.S. Telematics Aggregators" was written by the firm's Global Telematics Team. The report concludes that BMW is one of the most forward-looking companies as evidenced by its new iDrive system. At the other end of the spectrum, OnStar and Wingcast, the telematics subsidiaries of GM and Ford respectively, will need to amend their approach to the market in order to address the coming change.

For example, advances in wireless communication technology will limit the revenue opportunities for the aggregators to vehicle-centric services only. "We believe that the development of the telematics market will force GM and Ford to reconsider their telematics strategies. Ultimately, we believe both will come to see telematics as part of their core business," said Saul Rubin, auto industry analyst at UBS Warburg.

UBS Warburg analyzed the prospects of seven leading telematics service aggregators and reached several concussions: -- OnStar, Wingcast and ATX will dominate the OEM market. MobileAria and Vcommand will succeed in the after market -- Aggregators risk finding their roles as service providers reduced as larger general mobile service opportunities will be met by other providers such as AOL Anywhere, Yahoo!, and the wireless carriers -- Telematics will ultimately become just another vehicle component as OEM's will multiple-source telematics systems as they do other vehicle components -- The savvy aggregators will look to position themselves as systems integrators of telematics modules -- Branding is a crucial issue for using telematics as a CRM tool for the OEMs -- OEM aggregators such as OnStar, Wingcast, ATX Technologies and Cross Country Automotive Services risk being relegated to providing vehicle-centric telematics services only -- In the long-term, OEMs will multiple-source telematics systems integrators.

The UBS Warburg study focused on seven companies that act or plan to act as the contact point for the telematics consumer for all services. These companies act as intermediaries between third party service providers and the end user. The companies examined were ATX, OnStar, Wingcast, Cross Country, MobileAria, Comworxx and Vcommand.

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