Q&A: mapIT
MapIT was established in 2002, providing digital map data to the local market. Listed media group, Avusa owns a 51% share of mapIT through New Holland Publishing and TomTom Africa owns the remaining 49%.
What is mapIT’s traction in the SA market?
MapIT has a wide variety of clients but their major clients include all the leading tracking and fleet management organisations. Through our location intelligence tools, MarketScope and Address Validation Tool (AVT), we have clients that range from insurance providers Santam, Discovery, Hollard to leading retail organisations such as MassMart and Famous Brands.
How does your business model work?
MapIT is an enabler, providing accurate location based content to businesses who then take this and develop innovative applications. We offer accurate and extensive coverage of Sub-Saharan Africa and across the globe, as supplied to us by our shareholders TomTom Africa. Over 104 countries and territories and 34.8 million kilometres of road covered globally.
In Southern Africa we have 60% more road coverage than our competitors, over one million more kilometres covered, with over 300 000 points of interest (POI) in South Africa.
What market share does mapIT command in SA?
MapIT holds an 85% market share of the fleet and tracking industry, this is due to our accurate navigation data as supplied by our shareholders TomTom Africa. In March of this year, marking a first for the SA mapping and LBS (location-based services) industry, mapIT signed an exclusive distribution agreement with the world’s leading independent enabler of LBS , deCarta.
The agreement spans through Sub-Saharan Africa. MapIT integrated the TomTom map data into deCarta’s acclaimed LBS platform, which already features over 30 million users across the world and enable applications developers, content publishers, mobile network operators and local media houses access to accurate mapping data and innovative LBS platform technology to develop navigation applications, mapping and local services applications and a wide variety of mobile LBS applications.
What regions does mapIT operate in Africa?
MapIT has extensive mapping coverage across Africa, we operate throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.
What plans does mapIT have in SA over the near-medium term?
Together with our shareholders TomTom Africa, Avusa and partners to position ourselves as the leading international enabler of accurate location based solutions throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.
How many people work for mapIT in SA?
15
Are there areas of growth you are targeting?
MapIT is targeting web and mobile markets. Smartphones and tablets play a particularly important role when it comes to developing location based applications but we also cater for feature phones as we believe LBS solutions should be available to all levels of users. mapIT provides both the mapping data and LBS platform to enable accurate and innovative suites of LBS applications to be developed.
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