People who own a standalone GPSUS population using the internet
American standalone GPS ownership going down as American internet penetration approaches saturation. The negative correlation is, in this case, almost causal. The phone replaced one and made the other inevitable.
US internet penetration grew from about 75 percent in 2007 to over 92 percent by 2022 as broadband and smartphones reached the last households. Standalone GPS device ownership has fallen steadily across the same window as smartphone navigation absorbed the function: Garmin, TomTom, and Magellan saw consumer-segment volumes collapse. The negative correlation is partly causal: the same smartphone that lifted internet penetration is what retired the dedicated GPS. Two parts of the same device transition.
The phone replaced one device and connected another category. The decade simplified the dashboard.
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