China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system covers 90% of key industry uses: ministry

China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system – its home-grown alternative to the US-run Global Positioning System – has been adopted in about 90 per cent of “key industry applications” nationwide, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

In a social media post on Wednesday that also reposted a report by state broadcaster CCTV, the ministry said BeiDou’s comprehensive application penetration rate across key industries had reached about 90 per cent. Further detail on which sectors constituted “key industries” was not provided.

In its post, the ministry said it had launched a pilot programme in 2024 to promote the large-scale application of BeiDou across the Chinese economy.

In the first half of this year, 39 cities taking part in the pilot programme had added 2.96 million BeiDou stand-alone positioning terminals, up about 30 per cent from the same period last year, the ministry said.

It added that several cities had achieved 100 per cent adoption of BeiDou in specific areas, including shared bicycles, taxis, government vehicles and agricultural machinery.

By the first half of this year, 39 pilot cities had deployed more than 12 million BeiDou-enabled stand-alone positioning terminals, the ministry said, with more than 7.2 million in consumer applications, over 4.6 million in industrial manufacturing and more than 1 million in integrated innovation.