City of Beijing encourages satellite navigation sector

The municipality of Beijing is encouraging investment in the navigation and location-based services industry, suggesting there is a market worth at least 50 billion yuan ($8 billion) by 2015 after China put its own satellite navigation network into commercial use.

The reaction comes after the latest satellite in China's Beidou-2 navigation system was launched in Xichang in October. The system is expected to start providing positioning and navigation services for China and neighboring areas by the end of this year and provide global coverage by 2020.

The Beijing municipal government said there is capacity for at least 100 location-based services in the city, Shanghai Securities News reported on Wednesday, citing Beijing Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, the industry regulator.

Beijing-based navigation companies expected to use the Beidou System, include NavInfo Co Ltd, AutoNavi Holdings Ltd, Beijing UniStrong Science and Technology Co Ltd.

AutoNavi, which is providing map services to Apple Inc in the Chinese mainland, said Beidou will help the company to better service its Chinese users.

Jiang Derong, senior vice-president of AutoNavi, said: "Beidou is set to beef up our services and I am not worried by the head-on confrontation of Beidou and GPS from the United States. Beidou has its own strengths in China."