New Kenwood car stereos have Garmin

Garmin announced Monday that it will provide GPS navigation to Kenwood’s 2008 lineup of in-dash car electronics.

“We have been very pleased with Kenwood’s success in selling Garmin-equipped units since we started our partnership in 2006, and we’re expecting even greater things in 2008,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales.  “We have developed an integrated marketing strategy with Kenwood that will benefit dealers and consumers.”

This is an interesting agreement, the terms of which call for Garmin and Kenwood to team up on advertising and develop a website for the new Kenwood/Garmin integrated products.

“The alliance between Kenwood and Garmin is very unique to the consumer electronics industry,” said Keith Lehman, senior vice president of Kenwood USA Corporation.  “The combination of Kenwood’s multimedia, in-car technologies and Garmin’s GPS navigation technologies has produced a remarkable line of advanced products that appeal to even the most demanding customers.  With our joint promotional activity already underway, we expect 2008 to be a very successful year.”

According to Garmin, the navigation component features pre-loaded maps of North America or Europe, along with six million points of interest built into a touch screen interface. “The Garmin system uses internal flash memory for driving the navigation software engine so there’s no need to swap navigation discs as with many competitive models,” Garmin said Monday. “Other optional features available on these cutting-edge units include Satellite Radio, HD Radio, Bluetooth, high-speed iPod audio and video control, and more.”

The new Kenwood units will be available globally through Kenwood dealers and their dealer option business.  For more information visit http://www.kenwoodusa.com/ or  http://www.garmin.com/.