The sat-nav maker shut down when Google made free navigation available in 2009 is now a local technology within Microsoft, Uber and Huawei, and its return offers one of the sharpest survival lessons any UK business owner will learn this year.
TomTom’s growth has been phenomenal: revenue has grown from €40 million to €1.8 billion in five years, and nearly 10 million people own one of its devices. Then Google introduced free turn-by-turn navigation and the £499 gadget on the dashboard looked out of date overnight.
The share price fell by 97 percent. Worse, in the past months the company had paid 2.9 billion euros, at 28 times EBITDA and largely financed by debt, for the map maker Tele Atlas. Recovery proved impossible.
But that seemingly serendipitous discovery turned out to be one legacy that Google couldn’t copy: one of only two digital maps of the world. TomTom stopped selling navigation devices and instead began licensing the technology space. Almost two decades ago, its results for the full year of 2025 show a revenue of 555 million euros, a net income of 88 percent compared to 50 percent in the hardware period, its first operating profit from 2020 and 263 million euros of net debt.
For small companies facing their giant-shaped problem, the playbook breaks down into three steps.
Protect the energy, not the product.
TomTom’s founders bet that their maps, continuously improved by billions of GPS observations from those 10 million sat-navs, were the real deal. They retained Tele Atlas CEO Alain De Taeye, who led mapping for the next 18 years. And when the income fell by 60 percent, they did not lay off: the founders invested 169 million euros in their capital and increased the annual R&D almost tenfold to €347 million. They invest during a crisis, not after it. It’s a lesson in confidence for any owner tempted to cut spending at the first sign of trouble, and a reminder that the most innovative firms treat technology investments as a way of life, not a luxury.
Win by cooperating with your rivals’ enemies.
Uber, Microsoft and Huawei all chose TomTom because it wasn’t Google. CEO Harold Goddijn called TomTom the “Switzerland of navigation”, and the neutrality was an advantage. Google even continued to attract customers to its competitors: developers were paralyzed after a 14x API price increase, Huawei arrived after the US ban. Google is creating a consumer market; TomTom became an infrastructure under everyone who did not want to depend on it. Dozens of British firms have found the same, which is why specialist businesses continue to outperform large rivals in so-called big-box markets.
Change the economics before you reorganize.
Revenue fell by 60% but grosses almost doubled to 88%. The Orbis platform has replaced quarterly map releases with a continuously updated AI system. Then came the cuts, 800 roles were eliminated. Technology first, cost base second. Mike Schoofs sold the sat-nav business, built the maps business, and in 2026 the commercial pivot builder became CEO. As some firms embrace the strategic pivot they have discovered, the succession of stories as a destination.
While Google makes navigation free, TomTom makes very valuable maps. The company that everyone thought was dead is quietly showing everyone the way.
