PRESS RELEASE
Berlin, Germany, 5th July 2010 - skobbler, creator of the free sat nav app for the iPhone, has announced today that since its UK launch just three weeks ago, the skobbler navigation app has been downloaded more than 72,000 times, surpassing the launch success achieved in the company's native country, Germany, a few months ago. To put this figure into perspective, a total of 266,000 PNDs were shipped into the UK market in Q1 2010, according to industry analysts Canalys. With the similarity in service offered, it's fair to put these figures into context, which leads to the astonishing fact that skobbler's 3-week-volume equals 27.1% of all UK PND shipments in the first quarter of 2010. A fact that may well serve as an example for both the increasing popularity of mobile phone apps for in-car navigation as well as the revolutionary navigation concept of skobbler in particular.
skobbler has sat comfortably at the top of the UK free navigation app chart for three weeks, and reached No. 10 of the most popular free apps in the UK app store overall, only being beaten by a few top-notch games and World Cup related apps such as the Vuvuzela.
"We are only just getting started in the UK," says Marcus Thielking, co-founder of skobbler. "It's early days and to have experienced such success in such a short amount of time is quite overwhelming and encouraging. It demonstrates again just how popular mobile phone navigation is becoming." In several ways, the skobbler concept is a no-brainer for end-users: there's no initial outlay for expensive GPS hardware, map updates are more frequent and free for life, and there's no need to carry around additional devices. "We are over the moon that so many users have already embraced the community-driven collaborative OpenStreetMap project that our app is based on, and are very encouraged that the concept will continue to evolve into the future of sat nav", adds Thielking.
Since its launch, skobbler has been busy working closely with its customers through lively exchange with its forum members on the skobbler website, listening to customer feedback in order to constantly develop skobbler according to its customers' needs. In fact, users can already expect a major update in the coming days in which several enhancements to the system have been made as a result of customer feedback. Among other aspects, the update will dramatically enhance the visual appearance and stability of the app as well as offer full compatibility with Apple's new iOS4 firmware.
The new user interface will also be part of a brand new Google Android version of skobbler which will be launched in the UK over the coming days. "We're pushing with full force to continue delivering lightning-fast cycles of free updates with significant improvements. Only a brilliant framework like the app store makes such a high frequency of updates possible - which is just another major asset of smartphones versus other device categories," explains Thielking.
skobbler is a community-driven sat nav solution that empowers consumers to take matters into their own hands and make outdated and poorly detailed maps a thing of the past. It uses community maps from OpenStreetMap (OSM), the Wikipedia of maps that already has over 250,000 users worldwide dedicated to updating and creating the most detailed free map of the world. As a result, all users benefit from consistently updated maps without paying for expensive and already out-of-date updates. skobbler is available to download for FREE at the UK App Store at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skobbler-uk-ireland-lite-truly/id374083118?mt=8.
You can find further information on recent developments at http://blog.skobbler.com and http://forum.skobbler.com.
About skobbler
Berlin-based skobbler (www.skobbler.co.uk) has been independently developing navigation software for mobile phone platforms since 2008. skobbler's management team have a wealth of industry experience due to their former management positions at renowned navigation provider NAVIGON AG.
skobbler topped Germany's Apple App Store sales charts within 24 hours of its launch, and has stayed at the top of the navigation category ever since. Sales figures exceed 150,000 units, making it the top-selling navigation app in Germany.
skobbler is also currently available in the UK and US. It will be rolling out across other European countries during Q3/Q4 2010.
