PARIS (Reuters) - Digital map maker Tele Atlas will launch a new generation of navigation maps quickly after its acquisition by TomTom using data on driving conditions gathered by the device manufacturer.


Tele Atlas CEO Alain De Taeye said the 2.9 billion-euro ($4.5 billion) takeover by TomTom -- which has gathered data on millions of kilometers of roads -- would also make new products possible in areas such as real estate and urban planning.

"When and if this transaction closes we can on a very short term put out products that are what I would call new generation products," he told the Reuters Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in Paris on Wednesday. "Within six months, no doubt."

TomTom has gathered extensive data on maps and driving conditions -- its users submit about 10,000 corrections to maps every day, and a large number of drivers have also allowed the company to gather anonymous statistical data from their devices.

TomTom has amassed 1 trillion data points, the equivalent of driving every road in Europe and the United States a thousand times.

This data can make routing more accurate and also opens new opportunities for Tele Atlas' geographical information services business. A buyer may for instance use it to learn what traffic around a property is like throughout the week.

De Taeye said Tele Atlas already offered services to governments, utility companies, planners and fleet managers and would expand it.

Tele Atlas was forced to cut its 2008 forecasts after a weak first quarter, but De Taeye described it as a "hiccup."

"Don't derive from that that there will be a trend change," he said, adding the market for car navigation devices still appeared far away from saturation.

"There is no data point whatsoever that would indicate that we're even close to saturation," he said. Markets such as Japan suggested that the saturation could be significantly higher than the current 15 percent, beyond 50 percent, he said.


(Reporting by Niclas Mika; Editing by James Regan)

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