China’s satellite navigation system Beidou expected to generate $298 billion services market by 2020
- China launched 19 positioning satellites in 2018 to provide basic coverage, with 12 more planned by 2020 to improve precision
Beidou, China’s home-developed satellite navigation system designed to reduce its dependence on America’s Global Positioning System (GPS), is expected to generate a services market worth over 2 trillion yuan (US$298 billion) by 2020, according to an industry group representative.
“Beidou will have wide applications in areas such as logistics, precision farming, marine monitoring, comprehensive urban security and smart cities,” Zhang Quande, secretary general of China’s association of global navigation system applications and location-based services, said at a conference in Shenzhen on Sunday.
“It will enter a fast-growing period in the coming three years,” the Shenzhen Economic Daily quoted him as saying on Monday.
The expected rapid expansion comes as China challenges the dominance of the US-led GPS amid wider efforts by the world’s second largest economy to become a global leader in space and related technologies under its Made in China 2025 programme.
GPS is more accurate, to within centimetres compared to metres, than the Chinese system but Beijing’s concerns over Washington’s ability to shut off service during a potential conflict prompted China, Russia and other nations to develop their own system. Beidou, the Chinese name for the seven stars that make up the Big Dipper, is one of only four global satellite navigation systems, along with GPS, Russia’s Glonass and Europe’s Galileo.
