Technology spurs turf wars in car tracking sector

New technology has opened up the car tracking sector to stiff competition that has seen price cuts as players seek to woo clients.

New players are offering prices as low as Sh15,000 to cover a car for a year. Established players are charging slightly higher prices, averaging Sh2,000 per month.

“We are in the process of reviewing our prices,” said Mr Earnest Mbugua, a sales executive at CarTrack, the largest player in the industry servicing over 300,000 vehicles in the region.

Mr Mbugua added that in the past few years, more vehicle tracking firms have been established. “The technology is more or less available to everyone now,” he said, adding that differentiating factors are customer service and marketing strategy.

Emerging markets like China are said to be behind the enhanced availability of the gadgets and dip in prices of vehicle tracking systems, competing head-on with old sources in North America and Europe.

Mr Richard Okinyi, the marketing manager at AutoTrack, said the firm was also reviewing its current price of about Sh2,000 per month.

“The new technologies are cheaper in terms of tracking and vehicle recovery. One can now rack their vehicle from the comfort of their home or office,” Mr Okinyi said.

In a bid to boost customer service, the firms are bundling an array of solutions in one package.

Mobile telephony

A flat fee, in the region of Sh30,000, is charged and covers the cost of setting up the system and for tracking it for the first one year.

For subsequent years, most players charge between Sh15,000 and Sh24,000. As the competition intensifies, motorists could soon pay monthly tracking fees of under Sh1,000 for the first time ever.

The new game-changing technology is a combination of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Global Systems Mobile (GSM) infrastructure that are used to roll out new customised services previously not possible with SVRS.

SVRS refers to stolen vehicle recovery system. It uses a two-way radio communication. Under this system, gadgets fitted onto the vehicle remain dormant and tracking is only initiated upon theft of the vehicle when a client calls to notify his or her service provider. GPS/GSM, on the other hand, offers real-time tracking around the clock.

It hands over control to motorists, allowing them to keep tabs on the whereabouts of their vehicles, among an array of other information accessible at additional costs.

Since its introduction a few years back, the new solution has been widely adopted. It is credited with the mushrooming of players in the sector targeting corporate clients eager to gain more control of their fleet of vehicles.

TrackIT debacle

It has served to replenish the much needed confidence in the industry. The TrackIT debacle in April last year resulted in a major shake of confidence, which is still felt to date.

More companies that used SVR tracking are dropping it and picking up the GPS/GSM system instead. Auto Track, for instance, uses the new model exclusively. Others, though, are running both.

“The old system of tracing cars is falling out of favour as customers find it hard to trust that their vehicles can be tracked effectively around the clock,” Ms Purity Tanui of Patriotic Guards, which has only a few clients under its old system, said.

In an earlier interview Mr Joseph Karumbi, the general manger of RiverCross Tracking Limited echoed her sentiments, saying the “market of the service where clients relied on service providers for tracking is dwindling.”

Though used by private car owners too, the new tracking model is more or less synonymous with the term Fleet Management Systems (FMS) after pushing demand among companies seeking to monitor the usage of their vehicles.

An increasing number of companies are signing up for fleet management systems. GPS/GSM allows for real-time tracking of vehicles, while simultaneously relaying statistics on factors, including fuel consumption rate, route travelled, and speed. In addition, it offers other capabilities like engine immobilisation and a user-defined cap on geographical movement, also called geo-fencing.

Players in businesses modelled around transport of goods and passengers are the major users of FMS.

The firms have had a challenge coordinating their operations while their profit margins have been eroded by fuel siphoning and general misuse of company vehicles by drivers.

With FMS, fleet co-coordinators and managers can stay on top of operations and check against losses from unscrupulous drivers.

Private motorists are also attracted by the idea of having the ability to monitor the location of their cars any time they wish to.

The demand for vehicle tracking solutions by both private car owners and companies has continued to rise, in particular, because of a surge in global vehicle thefts.