Google's Turn-by-Turn Nav Sends Garmin, TomTom Stocks Plummeting

We reported yesterday that Google may upset the entire GPS market. Hours later, they did. Personal navigation stocks went into freefall yesterday after Google announced it would bring turn-by-turn navigation to its mobile Google Maps apps.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Garmin shares lost 16% of their value, and TomTom dropped 20%. Google's new mobile maps will allow flexible searching for addresses, voice-search, traffic, along-the-route search, satellite view, street view, and even a special car-dock mode for people who feel like mounting their smartphones to a car dash. With all that packed into your phone, there's little reason to throw a few hundred bucks at a PND like Garmin's Nuvi.

Verizon's Droid phone is the first to sport Google Maps Navigation because it runs Android version 2.0, codenamed Eclair.