Garmin and TomTom may need to guard their backs in the portable navigation device market. Americans are increasingly using their cell phones for navigation, according to data from comScore, which says that navigation on the cell phone as of the end of May was up 82 percent over the same period a year ago. That’s a huge rise, but still a relatively small audience of users, which means the 7.6 million-person increase in cell-phone map users had a huge percentage impact.

However, more GPS chips in cell phones such as the 3G iPhone and the Samsung Instinct, as well as unlimited data plans that make access to navigation free (Verizon, c’mon you still want to charge me $9.99 a month for this?), means consumers are likely to turn to their existing gadgets rather than shelling out $236 (on average) for a single-focused device. On the other hand, prices for said devices have dropped by a third since last year, according to NPD research released yesterday. No wonder Garmin is getting into the cell-phone business.

chart courtesy of comScore

If this story interests you, check out our upcoming conference:
Mobilize — Mobile Web Today and Tomorrow

Harbinger Capital today offered satellite service provider MSV/Skyterra $500 million to pay for the company’s launch of its two new satellites. The private equity firm also made clear it’s planning to push for a deal to acquire British satellite company Inmarsat. The acquisition attempt isn’t welcomed by Inmarsat, but Harbinger owns 28.8 percent of its stock, which means Inmarsat will have a tough time keeping Harbinger and the Skyterra deal at bay.

We started to anticipate such mergers back in March after looking at the number of players trying to make it in the difficult satellite services business, as well as the likelihood of U.S. regulators approving the Sirius-XM merger, which took another step further yesterday. Harbinger is apparently confident that the FCC will look favorably on its attempt to provide a 4G satellite and terrestrial network, too.

The combination of Skyterra and Inmarsat makes sense because they both own complimentary spectrum and satellites that work in the L band. According to the Skyterra press release, regulatory approvals for any deal would take between a year to 18 months to complete, which means the $500 million in cash is needed to keep the company — and its birds — afloat in the meantime.

Harbinger could be eyeing other deals as well. The firm has a large ownership stake in TerreStar, which owns spectrum in the same band owned by EchoStar. TerreStar is leasing spectrum from Echostar are already sharing spectrum, so closer ties between those two are likely coming.

photo from NASA

If this story interests you, check out our upcoming conference:
Mobilize — Mobile Web Today and Tomorrow

Yesterday, the guys from eBuddy sent me a press release (pdf link) that made me wonder: With the rise of flat-rate data plans for feature-packed mobiles and the high-speed 3G network becoming commonplace, will mobile IM start to eat into the lucrative SMS business?

The data from eBuddy would suggest as much. The company claims that 5 million copies of their mobile IM client were downloaded in the first year the company made the software available. The company is processing a billion messages every month from two million unique monthly users. I am still not clear how it translates into big business, given mobile advertising is still in the early development phase.

eBuddy is quite popular in Europe, where 3G has become pervasive. This explains to some extent the heavy messaging reported by eBuddy. It is also an area where SMS charges are quite high, so it’s cheaper to use mobile IM than sending text messages. Mobile IM is a pretty hot market, with a bunch of players, such as OZ, trying to grab the brass ring. Nimbuzz is another recent entrant. Research analysts at Informa estimate the global market for mobile IM will hit $11 billion by 2011.

If this story interests you, check out our upcoming conference:
Mobilize — Mobile Web Today and Tomorrow