u-blox expands production capacity to South America

“The Brazilian government has mandated that new automobiles sold in Brazil must have an AVL tracking device built-in”, said Nikolaos Papadopoulos, President of u-blox America. “As LEON is a critical component for AVL systems, we have commissioned a large-scale production line in Brazil to accelerate our response to our AVL customers, lower costs and simplify logistics.”

In 2007 there were over 3 million new vehicles sold in Brazil. In the same year, there were over 380,000 stolen cars with only an estimated 50% recovery rate (source: GPD consulting). In addition to AVL installed in new cars, there is also an after-market sector of over 18.5 million existing vehicles in Brazil. AVL is intended to deter vehicle theft, prevent road-tax fraud, and lower insurance costs.