Beidou Industrialization Accelerates: Layout of New GPS Market Vendors

“The demonstration of 9 provinces and municipalities is just the beginning. In the future, the country’s 'two passengers and one dangerous' vehicle will be fitted with Beidou/GPS dual-mode vehicle terminals in succession. It is conservatively estimated that the production of corresponding Beidou terminals will increase to 4 million units.” Dongguan Doo Microelectronics Co., Ltd. Deputy director of the General Office of Economic Management, said Ningshan Guo.

According to the regulations of the Ministry of Communications, starting from January 1, tourism chartered buses, buses, dangerous goods transport vehicles, heavy-duty trucks, and semi-trailer tractors in nine pilot provinces and cities in Jiangsu and Anhui need to be updated or installed for the first time. The Beidou/GPS dual-mode vehicle terminals must be installed, involving 80,000 terminals, 7 application systems, and 1 support platform.

“The Beidou industry is brand new, but the manufacturers in the industrial chain are not new. The original GPS products, from chips to applications, are all launching Beidou products.” Wan Xinyu, vice president of SEG navigation, pointed out that with the continuous release of the national government The signal to promote the development of the Beidou industry, domestic and foreign companies have deployed the Beidou industry. This year, Beidou is expected to take the lead in opening the market in the industrial market. In the future, Beidou’s product prices will gradually decline.

Guohai Securities predicts that before the mass market opens, the Beidou navigation industry will grow from 1.5 billion yuan in 2011 to 20 billion yuan in 2015. With the scale of mass market shipments, by 2020, Beidou’s navigation scale will reach 100 billion, and the market share will increase from 2% in 2011 to 25%.

Industry market first

It is reported that satellite navigation systems can achieve positioning, navigation, timing and other functions, applied to the military, the industry and the general consumer market. At present, there are four major satellite navigation systems in the world, including GPS in the United States, GLONASS in Russia, Beidou Navigation in China, and GALILEO in the European Union. Among them, GPS accounts for more than 90% of the global satellite navigation market.

According to data from the China Global Positioning System Technology Application Association, the market size of the satellite navigation industry in China was around 75 billion yuan in 2011, while the size of the Beidou navigation industry market was only about 1.5 billion yuan. It is mainly used in the military field, and the civilian market is almost blank.

In response, Wan Xinyu said: "When there are still gaps in prices, brands, etc., the government can use policies to support the official vehicles, buses, 'two passengers and one crisis', fisheries, forestry, public security, fire and other industrial markets. Beidou navigation system development."

"Compared with GPS, there are still many gaps in Beidou navigation." Wan Xinyu said that the policy to support the development of the Beidou navigation industry is reasonable and legal in any country and does not violate the relevant WTO regulations. "In addition to the transportation sector, Beidou navigation products can be forcibly adopted in the fishery, forestry, public security, and fire protection industries."

However, consulting the China Procurement and Tendering Network found that in the above industries, the number of bids for Beidou navigation products is still far less than the number of GPS products.

"Now Beidou is still in the lead-in period for the civilian market. Without government subsidies or mandatory requirements, GPS products have an advantage in market competitiveness." Wan Xinyu said.

Ning Shanguo said that the demonstration projects in 9 provinces and cities currently only involve 80,000 terminals. However, as far as Taidou Microelectronics is concerned, the number of Beidou chip sales contracts has reached nearly 400,000, most of which are used in the "two passengers and one dangerous" market. . “In the future, other provinces will be required to install Beidou products one after another. By that time, the installed capacity of the BeiDou terminal should be able to reach 4 million units.”

Chen Jianhua, a staff member of the Shenzhen Hua Cheng Transportation Company, which specializes in the taxi business, disclosed that the Shenzhen Communications Commission earlier this year informed and encouraged the replacement of Beidou products in the future.

The Beijing Municipal Government is directly investing 90 million yuan to jointly build the Beijing Beidou navigation and location service industry announcement platform with companies such as UniStrong.

However, the industry market is only the tip of the iceberg in the entire satellite navigation system. The key is whether it can break through in the mass consumer market. The mass consumer market occupies more than 80% of the navigation system.

"The field of smartphones is a market that BeiDou wants to break through, and its shipment volume can reach 100 million," said Ningshan Guo.

According to Zhou Guoming, deputy general manager of Shenzhen Zhonghong Company, starting in March, the first batch of thousands of Taipei Doo/GPS dual-mode car navigation terminals will be promoted in the market, and the product prices will be the same as those of GPS terminals. It is estimated that shipments of dual-mode terminals can reach a million level in August and September.

Falling prices

However, whether the Beidou navigation products can eventually expand the market, or whether it is equally divided between the Chinese market and GPS, the key lies in the terminal prices.

It is reported that the price of the Beidou/GPS dual-mode terminal installed on the "two passengers and one dangerous" vehicle is about 2,000 yuan, while the price of the general GPS terminal is less than 1,500 yuan.

“The GPS satellite navigation system has been used since 1994. The Beidou started only two years later. It is nearly 20 years later than GPS. In addition to the technical gap, the price is the main obstacle to the promotion of the Beidou.” Guohai Securities analyst Yang Xinlin said, "For example, the chip is the most valuable part of the functional module, which accounts for 30%-50% of the cost. A GPS chip is priced at 40 yuan, while the Beidou IC chip price is as high as 400 yuan."

Ning Shanguo said that the price of component products is generally directly linked to the market size, and the larger the scale, the lower the cost. Judging from the situation of the Microelectronics of the Taidou Group, the unit price of the Beidou Second-generation chip has now reached 300 yuan or less.

It is reported that Taidou Microelectronics is also the successful bidder for the "two passengers and one dangerous" demonstration project in the above 9 provinces and cities. At present, the major markets of the Beidou navigation system are tenders for government procurement. In 2012, the shipment of the Beidou chips was about 100,000 units, mainly distributed in areas such as onboard positioning, shipboard positioning, handset positioning, and timing, among which, Thai Microelectronics holds more than 90% of the market share.

In fact, including Taidou Microelectronics, in the past, only a few listed companies including Beidou Xingtong, Hager Communications, Huali Chuangtong and Guoteng Electronics participated in the development of Beidou chips.

However, on December 27 last year, after the Beidou Group Network was completed, the national government promoted the development of Beidou products by domestic and foreign companies, promoted Beidou applications, and announced the official version of Beidou System Spatial Signal Interface Control (ICD).

An employee of Guangzhou Xintu, a satellite navigation product agency company, disclosed that after the release of the ICD document, companies that used to make GPS and other satellite navigation system chips were able to launch Beidou chips. Semiconductor manufacturers UBLOX in Switzerland, Dachen in Taiwan and MediaTek will launch chips compatible with navigation systems such as Beidou and GPS this year. "It is estimated that prices will be even lower in mainland China."

Ning Shanguo also revealed that Taidou Microelectronics is developing a new generation of chips, and prices will continue to decline.