P.M. BRIEFING : Car Navigation System Planned

Hitachi Ltd. and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. today announced a joint venture to make car phones and navigation systems for vehicles in hopes of profiting from the rapid growth in the auto information and communications equipment market.

Their venture, Xanavi Informatics Corp., aims for annual sales of $153 million within three years, rising to $763 million by the year 2000.

The companies will invest a total of $19 million, with the venture owned 51% by Hitachi and 49% by Nissan.

Hitachi and Nissan expect car-phone installations in Japan to increase to about 8 million units in the year 2000 from the current level of about 700,000. Annual Japanese demand for navigation systems will rise to about 300,000 sets in 1995 from about 20,000 now, the companies said.