Beidou may drop in price and compete with US’GPS (2)

China launched its 16th Beidou geostationary satellite on October 25 and formed the Beidou-2 positioning network, which will begin an era of rapid development for the Beidou system, China News Service (CNS) reported.

"2012 will be an introductory year" for the rapid application of the Beidou system in positioning, navigation and timekeeping in China, Zhao said, noting however that it may take several more decades for the system to be widely applied in Chinese daily life.

It also took GPS over a decade after its debut to gain a wide audience, Zhao said.

The market for Beidou system services in China is expected to exceed 200 billion yuan ($32 billion) by 2015 and over 400 billion yuan by 2020, CNS reported.

"We believe the prospects for Beidou's applications are promising, and the system is significant to China because with it, we no longer rely on foreign providers for navigation services," Min Xiangjun, with the China Center for Resource Satellite Data and Applications, told the Global Times Sunday.

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