On March 1, Sanyo Electric (TSE: 6764) will bring to market the MM NAVI NVA-100, a touch panel-based DVD navigation system which incorporates a 4x DVD disk drive for playing DVD Video, CD, and MD disks, a TV, and an FM/AM radio... The system also features TFT LCD monitor with a 6.5-inch screen at 336,960 pixels. Its DVD navigation system contains detailed street maps for 1,404 areas which can be searched by category (1.5 million items in 646 categories), phone number (41 million numbers), and address (26 million addresses).

The audio-visual features include a 45W x 4ch high-power amp and a four-mode digital signal processor function.

The product is likely to sell for 225,000 yen ($1,860), and Sanyo will initially manufacture 3,000 units. The company forecasts that navigation system shipments will exceed 2.2 million units in fiscal 2002 and reach 2.5 million units in fiscal 2003.