More HD Radios, Including In-Dash Car Models, Due Out This Year

In 2004, three receiver manufacturers — Kenwood, Panasonic and JVC — shipped to retailers HD Radios in one category — aftermarket autosound.
This year, we can expect to see terrestrial digital radios from more manufacturers and in more categories: home, tabletop and OEM. The average price should drop from the current average of $800 per unit to roughly $500, says Ibiquity.
Last year, the industry had three HD Radio products, this year will see 15 to 20, predicted Ibiquity President/CEO Robert Struble, in an exclusive interview with RW Online in Las Vegas.
This fall, HD Radios will be in one or two in-dash brands as OEM equipment, he said.
Displayed here at CES is product from additional companies: Alpine, Eclipse, and Jensen. Alpine is showing an in-dash DVD receiver that features an integrated HD Radio tuner. It’s satellite-ready and iPod-ready, according to the company.
Eclipse has an outboard HD Radio tuner module with which all headunits would be compatible.
Panasonic is on its second generation of products, with a CD receiver with built-in HD Radio.
Kenwood is set to announce its latest IBOC offerings today.
Having announced two years ago that it had an unnamed European automaker that planned to include HD Radios in the dash, Visteon says the unit goes into production this year.
Delphi expects to offer an aftermarket HD Radio in the future, possibly by 2006.
Boston Acoustic is offering a previously-announced tabletop model with multi-channel receive capabilities this spring. As RW Online readers may remember, this was a big announcement at the fall NAB Radio Show.