The market size for the electronic maps in 2008 was 49.24 billion yen (based on shipment from vendors). The market had grown steadily, having marked 49.26 billion yen in 2006 and 51.96 in 2007, but experienced 5.2% of large negative year-on-year growth in 2008. One of the major factors that impacted the market should be the decline of shipment to the car navigation and PND (Personal Navigation Devices) sector after the middle of 2008 that had driven the electronic map market until then.

The total market size continuously shows decreasing trend in also 2009 partially because private demand from the GIS (Geographic Information System) sector has declined since the mid 2008, and we forecast the market size in 2009 will end up with 48.75 billion yen.

In and after 2010, the market size should exhibit recovery trends due to the expected recovery of GIS market and growth of car navigation and PND sector, and is forecasted to be 50.35 billion yen in 2010 and 51.9 billion yen in 2011.

We foresee the car navigation and PND sector will continuously lead the electronic map market in future. In this sector, higher definition of maps than it is now will be required in future as interaction between car navigation systems, mainly genuine car navigation systems, and automobiles progresses, and therefore, the price of map database will be escalating. We predict that the electronic map market further expand as the price goes up.

While the sales to government offices and municipal governments stayed relatively healthy in 2008, the sales to the private-sector, shipment of which had been growing until the mid year 2008, were weak with the deterioration of economy.

For the fiscal 2009, we forecast the market size be 17.95 billion yen as demand from private sector may not recover to the level before the economic downturn in short period of time. In 2010, however, the gradual upturn of the market should be expected with the recovery of economy, and we forecast the market reach the equivalent level to 2006 or 2007 in the year of 2011.

The market of this sector has shown slight growth over the last few years and its size was 3.96 billion yen in 2006, 4.2 billion yen in 2007 and 4.33 billion yen in 2008. The market has been staying almost flat or growing only gradually because price of the electronic maps has been decreasing while the number of websites introducing the electronic maps has been drastically increasing.

As for the mobile phone sites, on the other hand, it has played a leading role for the growth of this sector as a whole due to the large increase of the sites that have started using electronic maps with the increase of subscribers to the fixed rate packet plan.

The number of companies who utilize electronic maps on their own websites has dramatically increased due to the increased provision of API (Application Program Interface) by major internet service providers for free map information. This lead to the decrease trend in electronic map price for websites and mobile phone sites that had been provided only for value in the past, and this trend is predicted to continue in future.

Furthermore, for some sites run by major players, such as portals sites, electronic maps are provided for free and revenue from advertising run in the maps on web pages are divided among the sites and map database vendors, which is called "revenue share" that is going to be more and more popular. Such revenue from advertising will most likely be lower than that from sales of electronic map licenses or monthly revenue from ASP (Application Service Provider) services for the present, which could cause decrease in sales of map database vendors in the short run. In the future, however, we believe there should be high probability that the revenue from advertising exceeds the license sales and ASP service sales. On the other hand, there should be large number of sites, such as corporate websites, that cannot post advertisements on the maps, and expansion of this sort of free map information should be limited.

On the whole, the number of sites that introduce electronic maps should continuously increase, and consequently, we forecast that the market size will keep showing slight increase until the year of 2011.