The total value of China’s satellite navigation and positioning services hit 575.8 billion yuan (US$82.3b) in 2024, 7.39 percent up on 2023. The increase is driven by increased coverage and applications of the China-developed BeiDou Navigation and Satellite System (BDS). It is now being used one trillion times a day, media reported.
The data was published on May 18 in a white paper released by the GNSS and LBS Association of China, a non-profit industry body.
The value of core industries related to satellite navigation and services, such as chips, parts, algorithms, software, navigation data, equipment and infrastructure grew by 5.46 percent to 169.9 billion yuan (US$24.3b), nearly 30 percent of the total value of the sector. Subsidiary industries saw their total industrial value rise by 8.21 percent to 405.9 billion yuan (US$58b), about 70.5 percent of the total. By the end of 2024, Chinese entities has submitted more than 129,000 patent applications related to satellite navigation, a 4.8 percent year-on-year growth.
First going online in July 2020, BDS is the third satellite navigation system acknowledged worldwide following the US’s GPS and Russia’s GLONASS. By the end of 2024, about 410 million satellite terminals were sold in China, including about 288 million smartphones supporting BDS positioning functions.
BDS applications are much more extensively used in domestic applications of 5G communications, AI, the Internet of Things and the low-altitude economy, an emerging strategic industry for China, the report said.
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