Beidou commercialization: Less than 1% of civilian navigation market share

Weak Chinese companies want to postpone the release of the Beidou navigation system's civil decoding files, and the impatient foreign companies are switching to Russian GLONASS and the European Galileo system.　　In the fierce competition in the civil navigation market, the Beidou still have the opportunity? "New century" weekly reporter Dawei in the world navigation pattern, China has occupied a place.　　This is due to the 2003 "Beidou Generation" navigation system operation. However, it is undeniable that the commercialization process of Beidou system is very slow.　　In the entire Chinese civil satellite navigation equipment more than 50 billion yuan market, the Beidou system share only has less than 1%. Our correspondent learned that this is because the Beidou system and the United States GPS, Russia GLONASS navigation methods, resulting in limited capacity, terminal cost is high; On the other hand, because China has not released the relevant documents decoding Beidou civil signals, the development of Beidou terminals is limited to a few companies.　　Not conducive to large-scale production to reduce costs. In early September, at a navigation industry forum in Shanghai, domestic companies wanted China to continue delaying the release of relevant decoding documents, leaving more time for domestic companies to prepare.　　Foreign mainstream navigation giant's personage privately said, if this condition continues, along with the Russian GLONASS system consummation, the European Galileo system success, the international interest to the Beidou will gradually cool, the Beidou civil market may descend to rely on the government procurement to maintain the situation. Few users in the South China Sea fishing boats, have a set of green communications equipment, use it can always know their location, in distress for help.　　This is China's own development of Beidou navigation system. In 2003, the "Beidou" navigation system began to operate, and China became the third country to have autonomous satellite navigation systems after the United States and Russia. August 1 This year, China launched the fifth Beidou navigation satellite, which is also launched this year's third Beidou navigation system network satellite.　　According to the plan, the Beidou system will reach the Asia-Pacific region in 2012, with more than 30 satellite networks and global systems built around 2020 years. "Maritime operations are high-risk operations, typhoons, ship failures, inadequate supplies are likely to occur, or because of intrusion into the restricted area by others chased, caught, beaten, resulting in diplomatic events." So it is necessary to monitor the South China Sea fishing boats and protect the fishermen.　　"Beijing Dipper Tong Navigation Technology Co., Ltd. (002151.SZ, hereinafter referred to as the Big Dipper Tong) chairman of the Zhou Ruxin to this newspaper reporter said." Big Dipper Tong Vice President Zhaoyu told our correspondent, the current Beidou navigation system for the entire civilian users only more than 20,000, the Dipper accounted for about 60%, mainly engaged in marine fisheries more than 10,000 users. "There are about 280,000 fishing vessels on the coast of China, and our target users are the Chinese and the offshore, 50 tonnes and over 60 tons of fishing boats."　　He also revealed that the Big Dipper through 2007 on the civil system has more than 10 million yuan income, 2009 close to 100 million yuan. This is already an explosive growth. But relatively Yu GuoThe international navigation giant's $ more than 1 billion trillion in income every year is woefully meagre.　　China Global Positioning System Technology Application Association has predicted that by 2008 the Beidou system users will reach 300,000, the direct output value of 3.5 billion yuan, accounting for about 20% of China's navigation and positioning industry, driven by the related output value of tens of billions of yuan. In fact, the Beidou user was only 60,000 by the end of August 2009. In more than 50 billion Yuan China's satellite navigation market, the Beidou system share is only about 1%.　　The Beidou system registers the on-line terminal user to be equal to its design capacity 1%, the satellite resource is idle seriously. Decoding files postponed publication behind the scenes in the September 2 "Shanghai International Intelligent Transportation and navigation industry Science and Technology Development Forum" Intelligent Transport Information Forum, a number of domestic business leaders to talk about more, is the Chinese traffic management department for the U.S. GPS application of the will, rather than the Chinese Beidou system application of the possibility.　　And the audience is sparse, hearted.　　The US Qualcomm engineer Zhang rehabilitated, who sits next to our correspondent, said that on the stage, the most concerned is to keep the Beidou civil signal secret for a period of time and give the domestic enterprise a longer buffer period.　　He believes that if China is slow to release the Beidou civil signal decoding files, Beidou in the international application will be difficult, the Beidou market will be limited to the government procurement of such a mandatory market, it is difficult to really move to civilian. He refers to the Beidou signal decoding file, which is professionally referred to as the ICD (interface Control document), an interface-controlled file.　　For navigation terminal Developers, must have this file, in order to design the corresponding chip, otherwise the terminal received satellite signal is a pile of garbled.　　In October 2009, Cao, director of the China Global Positioning System Technology Applications Association, said in a speech at Stanford University that the Chinese and English versions of ICD had been completed and would be released within one year of completion. The document has not yet been published.　　Industry insiders told the reporter, the document is in fact already ready, even the site of the release of documents have been built, but there are always domestic enterprises to find relevant management departments, lobbying temporarily not to release.　　The Earth Space Information Research Institute of Tsinghua University Professor 珺 said, China launched Beidou system is to have independent GPS, uncontrolled navigation system, and the development of its own satellite navigation industry, so China hopes that domestic enterprises in the use of the Big Dipper This unique tool to grow up, and then compete with foreign countries. She says the Beidou ICD has to be made public sooner or later, but a lot of the code is not yet fully fixed, and the inside is already making chips and receivers. "It's just that foreigners are so worried that they can occupy the market," he said. Now let the domestic enterprises to practice more. Zhaoyu said that the gap between China and abroad in the basic field is not two days a day, and once the ICD is open, it is possible to make a wedding dress for others.　　Open, compatible is the inevitable trend, but to the domestic enterprise buffer period, otherwise can only do the low-end of the industrial chain, and color TV industry, we are a meager profit status.For domestic enterprises, at present, through with the relevant management department signed a confidentiality agreement to obtain this document, and then develop the Beidou application products.　　Cao to our correspondent revealed that at present many companies in China, whether private or state-owned can be obtained through certain channels. The Big Dipper has invested 35 million yuan in the Beidou chip research last year, and plans to invest more than 100 million yuan. Zhaoyu revealed that the navigation chip engineering samples have come out, smooth words in the second half of the release, the next phase will be targeted at the civil mass market chip investment.　　This kind of chip can not only solve the problem of navigation itself, but also can assemble the video and audio functions of the car entertainment system, and compatible with GPS and Beidou two sets of signals. In the Beidou system application, the Big Dipper Pass is regarded as the leading enterprise.　　And more domestic enterprise strength is very limited, the promotion of Beidou is not strong. At the same time, foreign companies complain that they cannot get the decoded files. Chen, vice president of Japan's GPS surveying products company, said to our correspondent that now all of their equipment has GPS, GLONASS and even the European Galileo system tracking function, is not get the Beidou data. "We have also done some communication, but still because of policy constraints, even with domestic (enterprise) cooperation is not." "May 11, 2009, China Aerospace Science and engineering Group A yuan and the United States Tianbao Satellite Navigation Company (hereinafter called Tianbao Company) signed a contract, the two sides will form a joint venture in Beijing." This was once considered to be a symbol of China's navigation giant with the United States to develop Beidou products.　　But in the year since, the Beidou civil ICD document has not been announced, Tianbao has been considering abandoning the project. Chen that the ICD is not open, hinder the promotion of the Beidou in the international market, by this way to protect the national industry, not the final solution to the problem.　　China should be north of the bucket as a bargaining chip and foreign technology transfer, improve their technical strength, as now so closed doors to create, the result is neither fish nor fowl. Compared with Beidou, the Russian navigation system GLONASS the promotion attitude is very different. On September 2 This year, Russia launched three Glo satellites at the Baikonur launch Center in Kazakhstan, and plans to complete the GLONASS system's full update this year.　　For the purpose of promoting GLONASS applications, Russia not only publishes all the civilian ICD documents, but is also considering imposing a 25% tariff on import navigation terminals that do not contain GLONASS chips, and encourages the development of GLONASS by foreign producers such as Nokia, Motorola, Qualcomm, and local producers. The development of Beidou products is not smooth Tianbao company, in May this year with the Russian Space Systems Company signed a cooperation agreement, the two sides will each investment 50% development for GLONASS end products and infrastructure. In fact, because GLONASS not like GPS, Beidou, such as the use of CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) format, and GPS compatibility is more difficult.　　Analysis of the industry, it is China's delay to release the Beidou ICD documents, so that Tianbao company lost patience, instead of developing GLONASS. The last window with theFees and other issues and stalled Europe Galileo compared to the Chinese Beidou system of the network progress smoothly.　　According to our correspondent, although China once hoped to obtain some technology through the capital contribution, the various problems in the process of cooperation made China lose patience and gradually focus on the Beidou. Today, the Beidou system is undergoing a shift from active to passive mode. Whether the GPS, GLONASS or Galileo system, the broadcast passive positioning mode, that is, navigation satellite release positioning information, the terminal by receiving signals to calculate their position. The "Big Dipper" uses an active positioning approach, which signals to the satellite, and the computing center tells the user where it is.　　This and the development of Beidou system at the beginning of China's lack of strength, the first to adopt a special "double star" positioning approach.　　Science and Technology Department of the National Remote Sensing Center, Deputy director of Shaoliqin said, calculated again to tell the location, is not real-time, and subjective feelings there is a gap, so domestic enterprises can only target specific user development, such as marine fishing boats, troop scheduling, very dynamic positioning, rapid application or very difficult. With the small and flexible GPS, "Beidou generation" user Terminal transmitter unit volume, weight, power consumption, coupled with a small number of users, has not yet formed an industrial scale, unit product prices generally more than million, most of the industry users are difficult to accept, but not to the mass consumer promotion. Li, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University, said: "GPS is similar to radio, Beidou is the equivalent of satellite phones, the cost is too high."　　"Of course, analysts in the industry, this also in the current Beidou system capacity is limited, the protection of the military and government departments of the application needs." This year launched a few Beidou navigation satellite, opened the "Beidou second generation" of the big curtain. "Beidou second generation" system in accordance with the "passive navigation" design, that is the navigation object no longer need to transmit signals, with a micro-receiver to receive signals can be completed positioning.　　This feature has made the United States GPS a wide range of civilian, but also the "Beidou second generation" Civil Promotion Foundation. Of course, the "Beidou second generation" also retains the "Big Dipper Generation" advantage: because of the two-way short message communication function, the center station knows the location of the terminal.　　This is critical to vehicle regulation, dispatch and ship recovery.　　However, it is still unknown whether the Beidou will be able to gain a place in the future satellite navigation terminals in the case that the GLONASS is about to complete the network and the Galileo global coverage process may also be completed before the Beidou. In January this year, the European Commission announced that Galileo would be operational from 2014 and that a complete satellite navigation system could be built between 2016 and 2017.　　The United States will also complete the launch of the first full satellite of the third generation GPS satellite system. In addition, Japan and India have plans to launch satellites to enhance their respective regional satellite navigation systems.　　The Beidou's opponents are getting more and more. For the international mainstream satellite navigation terminal developers, the integration of the two systems is the best cost-effective way. In the premise of the GPS is very mature, the next choice is in the Russian GLONASS,China's Beidou and the European Galileo chose one. China is the world's largest and fastest mobile communications, Internet users and auto production and marketing market, these three aspects of the satellite navigation is closely related to the mass market.　　However, experts said that if the Beidou finished the network, the Chinese market has been flooded with foreign systems and good performance, low-cost navigation products, then the public consumption of the field of the door may have been closed to the Beidou system. Shaoliqin told The Economist, they can only say that the pace of civil progress, because the Ministry of Science and Technology can not do the Lord.　　"Ostensibly willing to open up, but has not come out yet." He said the International Civil Aviation Organization is developing navigational standards that determine what navigation systems are used on airplanes. The United States, Russia and Europe now have systems that can be used as air navigation systems, "We have no material at all." We also want to declare, to become an international standard, but other people's standards are set, and then added to the more passive.　　"Cao said that the Beidou civil ICD file to the global public release may not be too long, and the Beidou Global system was completed in 2020, even next year, the release of documents, domestic and foreign companies have enough time in their receivers to achieve the Beidou system function." He pointed out that Russia now forced to promote GLONASS, first in its domestic let everyone use up to form market scale, in order to promote industrial development, otherwise it will directly affect the existence of GLONASS value and viability. And Glonass's problems also deserve China's serious attention. As a global system, Beidou must first make the popularization of the domestic, at the same time seriously planning the international market, only more open, in order to win a larger market.