China's BDS sees thriving applications

HANGZHOU - The number of terminal devices utilizing China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) in China reached about 23 million as of the first half of 2023, an increase of more than 7.27 million over the same period last year, according to the latest industry report.

The data appeared in the China BDS Industry Development Index Report, which was released by the GNSS and LBS Association of China (GLAC) on Thursday at the 1st Chinese Geographic Information Conference for Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography held in Deqing, East China's Zhejiang province.

According to the GLAC, the report is the first research report on the industrial development index in the BDS field in China.

The report shows that BDS applications cover various industrial scopes.

According to the report, the number of BDS terminals applied in transportation vehicles has topped 8 million. There are more than 3.8 million in mobile communications, more than 1.6 million in agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fisheries, and more than 2.3 million in public security.

The number of BDS terminals applied in broadcasting and television, meteorological monitoring, natural resources, urban management, and other fields has exceeded 100,000.

The report said BDS applications have become the standard configuration of mass consumption products, such as smartphones and wearable devices, integrating into people's daily lives.

"Over the past ten years, the BDS industry has maintained high growth and rapid development and has made progress in marketization, industrialization, internationalization, and mass application," said Yu Xiancheng, head of the GLAC.

"The scale of BDS applications is expanding. China's BDS industry is steadily stepping into a new stage of high-quality development," Yu added.