Alibaba Group, the Chinese Internet behemoth, has begun capitalizing on business opportunities offered by China's Beidou Navigation Satellite System by launching a joint venture to develop location-based services using the indigenous navigation system.

The newly opened venture with State-owned China North Industries Group Corporation has 2 billion yuan ($312 million) in registered capital, and will give fresh impetus to the nation's push for wider use of Beidou, which has already extended its reach into many countries along the route of the "One Belt, One Road" initiative.

The Beidou navigation network has also gained a foothold in the ASEAN region. In 2013, a Beidou project began in Thailand. One year later, three demonstration stations for Beidou's ground-based augmentation system came into operation in Thailand. A total of 220 Beidou ground stations are planned to be built across Thailand by 2016, involving an investment of up to 10 billion yuan. Also, the Beidou navigation system is at present being used in Laos, Brunei and Pakistan.

It should be noted that Beidou's international usage is currently centering on countries and regions along the Belt and Road route, as a springboard for fostering greater use of the homegrown system across the globe. For this vision to be realized, plans were also drawn up by the nation at the end of July, outlining construction of an information corridor along the Belt and Road route in 2015-17 that will drive the internationalization of Beidou.

That said, a lot of work still needs to be done to drive the global use of Beidou. With the homegrown navigation system already adopted in many countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the portfolio of Beidou-enabled applications should be enriched and popularized, based on the actual needs of the markets along the Belt and Road route.

Furthermore, Beidou's infrastructure construction needs to be continued so as to improve its chances in competing with the US-based GPS network. Back in 1994, the GPS network had already established a constellation of 24 operational satellites. That number has now grown to 31, making GPS the predominant technology being relied upon for navigation and positioning. It is estimated that phones with GPS features accounted for 79.9 percent of the total number of phones used globally in 2012, in a sign of its mass consumer penetration.

Beidou has already missed the golden period for being popularized as a global satellite navigation application, so it is essential to further upgrade the communication functions of the Beidou system and continue to develop products such as applications for sending and receiving short messages as well as gradually expanding its use in the civil field. This will help it to gain a competitive edge over GPS. 

We should also advance the construction of Beidou terrestrial stations in countries and regions along the Belt and Road route.

By categorizing the countries and regions along the route into different groups in terms of their use of Beidou technology and launching joint development of the technology, we can motivate these countries to get involved in developing and applying the Beidou system.

On top of that, further cuts should be made to the costs of Beidou navigation chips, and a wider range of devices featuring Beidou usage need to be made available, so that the system can become genuinely appealing in overseas markets.

The article is based on a commentary in Shanghai Business by He Rongliang, a media personality. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn