Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) is a group of satellites transmitting positioning and timing data from the space to GNSS receivers. The transmitted data is used to determine location by the receivers.

The GNSS system provides a global coverage through global constellations which includes Russia’s Global’naya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema (GLONASS), the USA’s NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS), Europe’s Galileo, and China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System.

The Regional constellations are OZSS (Japan), IRNSS (India) and BeiDou regional component (PRC)

The performance of GNSS system is determined by evaluating some of the key parameters such as the system’s ability to function continuously without any interruptions, the integrity of the system, and the accuracy which is the difference between a receiver’s measured and real time, position and speed.

This performance can be improved by various regional satellite-based augmentation systems (SBAS) which includes WAAS (USA), EGNOS (EU), MSAS (Japan), GAGAN (India), SDCM (Russian Federation) and SNAS (PRC).

The GNSS market comprises of various devices e.g.- GNSS- enabled smartphone, Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs), Flight management system used in Aviation, Precision agriculture system, Search and Rescue devices, Driver Advisory systems. On the other hand, The Industry 4.0 revolution will be the major driving factor for GNSS as the new technological developments in industry 4.0 will play a very important role in expanding the GNSS technology market. Some of the major GNSS technology drivers are Big Data Analytics, Consumer IoT, Industrial IoT, AR/VR, Autonomous vehicles etc. The consumer IoT will play a major role for GNSS, as these devices are interconnected and have a requirement of accurate positioning in various applications. After that Big Data Analytics.

The majority of the GNSS system market is dominated by the Location based services (LBS) and Road based applications and the remaining other is covered by applications in Agriculture, Aviation, Maritime, Rail, Drones, and Surveying etc.

The value chain of the GNSS market simply consists of the Component manufacturers, System integrators, Value-added service providers & GNSS application users.

Some of the major players in the GNSS Industry are as follows:

Component Manufacturers in the value chain are Samsung, Broadcom, Intel, Qualcomm, Mediatek, and U-Blox, NXP Semiconductors, STMicrocontrollers, Trimble Navigation, Furuno, Hirschmann, Pulse electronics, TE Connectivity, Actia, Alpine, Bosch, Continental, Denso, Ficosa, Siemens, Stoneride, Valeo etc.

System integrators include companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Blackberry Limited, Huawei, Lenovo, Xiaomi, FitBit, Samsung, Garmin, Spot, Teltonika, Foxconn, Pegatron, Wistron, Canon, Nikon, Sony, Acer, Apple, Asus, Dell, HP, Hitachi, General electric, Siemens, GMV.

Value-added service providers are AT&T Mobility, Orange, RXNetworks, Telefonica, Verizon, Vodafone, Garmin, TomTom and many others.

Many of the leading players in the GNSS Industry are based in the United States which makes this region a leader in the overall GNSS Market followed by the European region and Japan. China has seen a rapid growth in the industry in the past few years.