Q: Gregory, thanks for taking the time to talk to us! Let’s get
started! TomTom is synonymous with Maps and Personal Navigation Devices (PND)
but not many know that TomTom also has quite a few APIs that help developers
build location-based apps… Perhaps it’s not surprising considering that
TomTom’s product page doesn’t list it! (see screenshot)
(i) Are APIs a new business
area at TomTom?
A: APIs are a relatively new
business area and an area of growth for TomTom. TomTom has been developing
Location Bases Services APIs for several years but only since the end of last
year, we started offering our APIs to businesses of all sizes to help
fuel growth for developers at any scale.
(ii) What is your vision
for the APIs market?
A: With the convergence of
offline and online, location information has become more critical than ever.
New players are entering the market very aggressively and existing players are
frequently changing their business models. Maps APIs are already required
in many existing use cases like IoT, fleet & logistics and on-demand.
But many new use-cases like smart cities, geospatial data analytics and
Augmented Reality are also empowered by Maps APIs which makes it a rapidly
growing and interesting market which that will keep on growing significantly
over the next couple of years.
Q: Before you dive deeper
into the TomTom API, let us address the “elephant in the room” – what’s your
opinion about Google Maps recent pricing changes? More specifically, are you
being approached more by startups looking for a “cheaper” alternative or has it
been more the enterprise customers who have approached TomTom?
A: The recent Google
price changes have indeed led to a lot of Google Maps customers looking for
more affordable alternatives. TomTom has seen double-digit growth in the
percentage of visitors to the developer portal, users of our APIs and questions
from customers looking to migrate from Google Maps APIs to TomTom Maps APIs.
Because of that, we have created tutorials on how customers can easily migrate
from the Google Maps SDKs to the TomTom Maps SDK on web and mobile. All of
these materials are available on our developer portal at developer.tomtom.com
We have been approached by both
startups and enterprises. For the startups who were not paying much
to Google before and now get invoices for thousands of dollars, the impact
is, of course, the heaviest, so we did see a more immediate and urgent
request for affordable alternatives there.
As of this week, we have also
announced that we will be giving away our maps and traffic flow tiles away for
free in our Mobile Maps SDK for both Android and iOS. We’re trying to make it
as easy as possible for startups to get started without having to worry about
the heavy costs to build applications.
Q: Could you tell us a bit more
about your pricing structure, as well as other value-added benefits and how
your approach differs from the competition?
A: We have made our maps and
traffic flow tiles on mobile free. This means that it will be entirely free for
developers to display maps and traffic flow inside a mobile application using
the TomTom Mobile SDK for iOS and/or Android. With free maps, developers can
add location in their application without having to worry about costs. An
example is a simple store locator where you want to display the location of
your business on a map. This will be entirely free using the TomTom Maps Mobile
SDK. Moreover, TomTom is the only provider to offer free traffic tiles. This
means that developers can also benefit from high-quality traffic information
and develop innovative mobile applications for free.
Outside of the free map and traffic
flow tiles in our Mobile Maps SDK, The TomTom Maps API pricing structure is
transactional, meaning we only charge our customers for the API transactions
they consume, without any additional subscription fees. The TomTom Maps APIs
can be used for free if the transaction volume does not exceed 2,500
transactions per day. When customers want to consume more than those 2,500
transactions per day, they can purchase small or large packages of TomTom
credits which are valid for 1 year. In our public pricing model, the smallest
package of 50k credits costs $25 (meaning $0,50 per 1000 transactions). When a
customer purchases larger packages, he even gets discounts which make the price
per 1000 transactions more attractive and lower than $0,50.
We are mainly differentiating
from the online pricing models from our competition by:
Giving our maps and traffic flow
tiles for free in our Mobile Maps SDKs
Providing evaluating customers to
access all our TomTom Maps APIs and SDKs
Offering discounts when
purchasing larger credit packages
Allowing customers to mix and
match our Maps APIs with other APIs
Allowing additional use cases
such as asset management
Providing personalized support to
all our developers, whether they are using our APIs for free or paying.
Q: A developer in the mapping
industry certainly has no dearth of choices. In your opinion, why should one
use the TomTom APIs instead of the other options? Why do you think TomTom
should be the first choice (besides pricing and good map coverage)?
A: The TomTom Maps APIs can
serve many use cases but they have been designed to specifically implement
applications for use cases within the mobility, fleet & logistics and IoT
industries. For any application where you need to know how to get somewhere and
when you will get there, the TomTom Routing and Traffic APIs are second to none
in quality. So in addition to fair pricing as your business grows, you get the
best solution in the market with the accuracy and precision you need.
To allow our customers to be
successful in those markets, TomTom has heavily invested in its technology:
Our transactional map-making
platform is allowing us to provide our customers with the freshest maps. We’re
currently doing 1.5bn map updates per month which is really impressive but at
the same time also mandatory to reflect the changes which are taking place in
real-time. This technology is reflected in the high quality and precision of
our geocoding and map display APIs.
Our traffic fusion engine is
allowing us to offer predictive, real-time and historical traffic information
in our routing and traffic APIs. By using this technology our customers can
calculate the most up-to-date and accurate travel times and itineraries.
Q: Your announcement offering
free mobile maps SDK is exciting news for a lot of developers. What lead to
this decision and what kind of impact do you think it will have?
A: TomTom has been in the
mapping space for over 26 years and till this day we’re trying to keep the
world and the people in it moving whether it be physically from one place to
the next or helping businesses advance in technologies. There are plenty of
waves in new technologies that are demanding location technologies today and we
knew we wanted to not only work with large companies, but also developers who
are just starting out. To do this, we wanted to not only make our products as
easily accessible as possible, but also our pricing. It is important for us to
listen to our developer community on the challenges they’re facing and how we
can best help them in building the next generation of applications. Thus, when
we gathered input on the challenges and heavy burden developers/businesses were
facing in getting access to reliable map tiles at little to no cost, we knew we
had to do something about this.
Q: The “Audio
Traffic” API where the driver gets (audio) traffic updates sounds like
something that Radio stations provide.. If you don’t mind us asking, could you
perhaps give us more information about its target audience and applications
where it is currently being used?
A: The Audio Traffic API is
allowing developers to create applications which offer personalized traffic
information. Radio stations are broadcasting traffic information to everyone in
the area but a lot of that information is not relevant for the itineraries of those
drivers. By using the Audio Traffic API, for example, music streaming apps can
offer personalized traffic information for each driver while they are listening
to their favorite music. This is not only allowing them to offer their
end-users personalized music but also personalized traffic information during
their itinerary.
Q: One of the APIs/Service that
caught my attention when browsing through your offering was the “Matrix
Routing” service that is part of the Online routing API (if I am right).
This seems like an useful service for ride-sharing applications, logistics
companies. Could you tell us more about this service?
A: This is correct. The
Matrix routing API allows developers to calculate travel times, distances and
delays between multiple origins and destinations by doing only 1 API call. By
using this API, you can for example implement the following use-cases:
Select the most appropriate taxi
for picking up a passenger, taking real-time traffic conditions into account
Highlight to a user where the
closest Starbucks or ATM is.
Calculate which trucks should
pick up and deliver what goods to serve all their clients in the fastest way.
Q: TomTom has been around for
almost 3 decades now and your maps are used by Microsoft as part of their Azure
platform, by Apple in their maps. Some of your customers (read Microsoft) also
have their own mapping APIs. Do you see this as a competition? What is your
take on this?
A: Microsoft is a strong
partner to TomTom who has a large community of Azure users/developers. Because
of this, Microsoft is actually helping TomTom on our mission to have our APIs
and technology adopted by as many developers as possible.
Q: More and more startups have
begun to see opportunities in using location data and APIs in building their
services/products. As the head of dev relations, are startups an area of focus
for your team? Is there something specific that you would like to convey to
startups?
A: Our entire online pricing
model is actually put in place to allow startups to use our Maps APIs in an
affordable way. Startups all have 1 thing in common: they want to grow and make
money. By offering our Maps APIs for free up to 2,500 transactions per day, we
allow startups to use our APIs for free, even commercially, when they are still
in an early stage. When they grow and their applications become more widely
used, they can select a package of the right size for them. So our online
pricing model is actually allowing startups to grow at their own pace without
any lock-ins.
Q: Another area where TomTom
faces intense competition is HD Maps (Maps for autonomous driving). Considering
that the German car industry has heavily invested in HERE and not many
automakers are rumored to be interested in working with Google that leaves
TomTom as the “only” global player.
A: The winner in the HD Maps
space will be the company that can offer a complete mapping system delivering highly
accurate, quickly updated HD Maps on a global scale. Our expertise in
map-making, map delivery and map maintenance – together with our network of
partners – puts us in a great competitive position to do just that.
Q: Any updates on your
partnership with Microsoft and Esri? (link)
A: After 6 months of public
preview, Microsoft has announced the general availability of Azure Maps in May
this year. We have been working with Microsoft to make more and more innovative
services available on the Azure platform, such as Matrix Routing or Route
Ranges (link).
We are very proud to be working with Microsoft to make great location
technology available to Azure developers.
Q: How do you think this space is
going to evolve?
A: TomTom is the global,
independent location expert. This puts us in a position to work with an array
of different companies, from large to startup and help everyone on their growth
journey. HD Maps and connected cars go beyond cars driving themselves to cars
talking to buildings and smart cities to create a connected ecosystem: IoT to
the max. TomTom is uniquely positioned to capture these opportunities and
enable the companies fulfilling these use cases.
Q: Any closing remarks that you
would like to share with our readers?
A: I would like to encourage
customers, who are impacted by the Google Maps price changes, to go to our
developer portal (developer.tomtom.com)
and evaluate our Maps APIs and SDKs for free. TomTom offers high quality and
accurate mapping, geocoding, routing and traffic APIs at an affordable price.
If there would be any further questions, we’re offering both technical and
commercial support via our contact-us page to all developers (free and paying).
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