Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Chip Market

Market Overview

The global navigation satellite system (GNSS) chip market size was valued at USD 189.16 million in 2022. It is projected to reach USD 716.02 million by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 15.94% during the forecast period (2023-2031). 

The term global navigation satellite system (GNSS) refers to a constellation of satellites that transmit signals from space to GNSS receivers, transmitting positioning, navigation, and timing information. It consists of satellite navigation systems like GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, and Galileo and offers precise real-time positioning and timing services to users worldwide. There are currently three GNSS systems in use worldwide that are fully operational. The Global Orbiting Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) of the Russian Federation comes in second, followed by the Global Positioning System (NAVSTAR) of the United States and the European Union's Galileo. It also has several applications in agriculture, location-based services, maritime navigation, and other fields.

Market Dynamics

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Chip Market Drivers:

Adaptation of Sustainable Agriculture, Meteorological Monitoring, and Environmentally Friendly Transport Solutions

Due to rising sales of GPS-equipped vehicles, the trillion-dollar automotive industry has become a lucrative vertical in the global GNSS chip market. With the development of vehicles with cutting-edge features, GPS has greatly aided autonomous driving technology, which chooses the user's lane and direction and navigates in precise directions. Users of these satellite systems can also follow precise and real-time location data. The growing demand for unmanned aerial vehicles is one of the most recent trends in the GNSS chip industry.

Unmanned aerial vehicles are devices that an autonomous computer can remotely control for monitoring, mapping, and real-time evaluation. Mapping disaster-affected areas are one prominent application that creates a high demand for GNSS chips across these vehicles. Demand for more precise and accurate GNSS solutions is rising as governments and people emphasize using environmentally friendly transportation options. The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) uses satellites to track the position of vehicles as they move across a field and is a crucial enabler of Precision Agriculture. These include mechanical furrow followers, cables in a field, radio frequency transponders in various locations throughout a field, and dead reckoning.

Growing Need for Accuracy in Real-Time Data

Real-time GNSS precise positioning and services have gained popularity due to the growing demand for real-time positioning and timing applications, such as surveying and mapping, smart cities, connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs), environmental monitoring, geological disaster monitoring, structural health monitoring (SHM), etc. Autonomous vehicles can share roads thanks to advancements in positioning and sensor integration. Self-driving vehicles need the accuracy, availability, and reliability of GPS technology. In AVs, sensors are crucial for the perception of the environment, localization, path planning, decision-making, and other processes necessary for controlling vehicle motion. AV uses cameras, radar, LiDAR, and ultrasonic sensors to understand its surroundings. Other sensors, such as GNSS, IMU, and odometry, determine the vehicle's relative and absolute positions.

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Chip Market Restraints:

GNSS's Inability to Provide Accuracy for Underground, Underwater, and Inside Navigation

Today, GPS is frequently employed and well-known for outdoor positioning applications like driving directions. However, this technology needs to improve to obtain signal and accuracy in enclosed spaces like parking lots and underground roads. The GPS signal power is weak coming from the satellite, and once it has traveled a considerable distance, it becomes even weaker, hardly strong enough to be useful. Any obstruction between the antenna and the sky reduces the signal. In most indoor environments, walls block or reflect GPS signals, preventing them from entering space. It is because of the weak signal strength inside the room that satellite signals cannot be adequately received, making it impossible to determine one's location. Therefore, GNSS systems' inability to transmit signals indoors presents a significant obstacle to market growth.

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Chip Market Opportunities:

Concentration on Innovations

The Internet of Things, the Internet of Vehicles, and cutting-edge applications like automated parking, autonomous driving, and automated logistics all depend on GNSS technology. Additionally, u-blox has been keeping a close eye on the modernization of the BeiDou navigation system and is prepared to work with industry partners to support the expansion of industry applications and expand emerging markets. The majority of GNSS stakeholders have prioritized increasing GNSS security. Device manufacturers have increased their research and development efforts to enhance receiver security and robustness. The European Union has been a leader in the industry through Galileo OS-NMA, SAS, and PRS. Various major vendors are enabling GNSS chips with Galileo, and emerging nations are anticipated to focus businesses on enabling chips with Galileo for security purposes. The market is concentrating on innovations expected to increase product demands during the anticipated time frame.

Regional Analysis

Asia-Pacific Dominates the Global Market

The global navigation satellite system (GNSS) chip market is segmented by region: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa.

Asia-Pacific is the most significant revenue contributor and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.6% during the forecast period. China and Europe view GNSS differently. In Europe, eleven GNSS-enabled technical groupings cover everything from consumer goods to essential infrastructure. Three markets were industrial, mass consumer, and niche. China's 14th five-year plan was released in 2021. It is a five-year plan that outlines China's 2035 vision. The 14th Five-Year Plan's emphasis on R&D and innovation impacts China's GNSS industry. Deepen the promotion and use of BeiDou systems; promote high-quality industry growth. The plan will accelerate core technology advancements, promote BeiDou's industrial application, and increase GNSS industry R&D. GNSS development is limited, dispersed, and chaotic.

Furthermore, most upstream businesses face fierce competition for low-end equipment, which hurts their profits. With policy support and direction, GNSS equipment manufacturers can break into the high-end mass application market, even though rail, transportation, and construction give the sector room to operate independently. The 14th Five-Year Plan's suggestion to promote BeiDou's industrial application directs the industry's downstream development considering the conundrum.

North America is expected to grow at a CAGR of 16.34% during the forecast period. The Navstar GPS is an all-weather, space-based navigation system that can precisely determine a military force's position, velocity, and time in a common reference system anywhere on or near the Earth continuously. It was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Global Positioning System (GPS) has benefited almost all positioning, navigation, timing, and monitoring applications. It sends out specially coded satellite signals that a GPS receiver can decode and use to determine position, velocity, and time. The region's market is expanding due to rising demand for IoT and cloud technology, as well as an increase in the sales of commercial vehicles. By 2025, the region will have over 100 million IoT-connected devices, and a comparable number of smart vehicles predicts the GSMA. For positioning and navigation, these devices actively use global navigation satellite systems.

GLONASS is owned by the Russian Federation (GlobalnayaNavigazionnayaSputnikovaya Sistema, or Global Navigation Satellite System). The fully functional system is made up of over 24 satellites in total. A total of 1.4 million vehicles were produced in Russia during the same period, according to the OICA (OrganisationInternationale des Constructeursd'Automobiles, or The International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers). In 2020, 1.26 million passenger cars were produced there. Most cars, mainly passenger cars, have built-in satellite navigation systems. The Russian automotive market is one important factor in advancing GNSS technology in the area.

In Latin America, a partnership between European and Mexican business and academic institutions, including everis, Enaire, Geotecnologas, the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, will be led by Telespazio Ibérica. The Center is being co-financed for 36 months by the Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space (DG DEFIS) of the European Commission. It has been operational since November 2019 and joins two other European GNSS centers in Chile and Brazil. By increasing the visibility of European satellite navigation in the area and encouraging cooperation on Galileo and EGNOS at various levels between the EU space ecosystem and regional actors, the Mexico City Center will support the EU Space Programme and its commercial uptake in Latin America. The partnership will monitor local and regional satellite navigation activities and significant stakeholders, creating new opportunities for the space ecosystem of the EU in the area. The Center will offer training, marketing, and communication services specifically catered to the needs of the area.

The African economy, particularly the aviation sector, and other industries like multimodal transportation and mass-market applications are anticipated to benefit significantly from the navigation service update: The service augments the Galileo and GPS constellations to increase sub-meter precision, signal coverage, and dependability. To show the value-added of the safety-of-life SBAS system, scheduled to go into service in 2024, the system must pass rigorous testing in the interim. Two additional crucial components of the program are the testing of the public warning system and the Precise Point Positioning capabilities.

Segmental Analysis

The global navigation satellite system (GNSS) chip market is segmented by device type and end-user industry.

Based on device type, the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) chip market is bifurcated into smartphones, tablets and wearables, personal tracking devices, low-power asset trackers, and in-vehicle systems.

The smartphone segment is the highest contributor to the market and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14.46% during the forecast period. Smartphone shipments continue to outpace devices with GNSS chips, even though mature smartphone markets, like the EU28, North America, and China, are primarily saturated. Smartphones have utilized GNSS chips for a long time. These chips are often compatible with all openly accessible satellite networks, including GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and others. These solutions needed to be more accurate than specialized navigation tools, though. The European GNSS Agency reports that various smartphone chipset manufacturers like Broadcom, Qualcomm, and Mediatek support Galileo in new products to the tune of over 95% of the market for satellite navigation chipsets. Top GNSS chipset manufacturers are producing galileo-ready chipsets, and leading smartphone manufacturers are already incorporating them into their most recent smartphone models. The market is anticipated to have more growth opportunities during the projected period.

GNSS devices such as personal navigation systems, road user charging, e-call, advanced driver assistance systems, bike-sharing, insurance telematics, smart tachographs, and fleet management systems can gain a sizable share of the studied market throughout the forecast period. The most popular application is navigation, which gives drivers turn-by-turn instructions via in-vehicle systems (IVS) and personal navigation devices (PNDs) built into cars. Using PNDs, IVS, and mobile devices, satellite traffic monitoring services collect floating automobile position data from moving vehicles, process it, and then make it available to users and other interested parties. However, the demand for PNDs is rapidly decreasing as more people use their smartphones for navigation, fueled by an increase in the number of new cars that come with an IVS.

Based on the end-user industry, the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) chip market is bifurcated into automotive and consumer electronics.

The consumer electronics segment owns the highest market and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14.72% during the forecast period. Applications for consumer electronics that are GNSS-enabled can be used with a range of hardware, including smartphones, tablets, and specialized gear like wearables, portable PCs, digital cameras, and personal tracking devices, to meet a variety of usage scenarios and requirements. GNSS, 5G, and IoT help new applications advance. Artificial intelligence (AI) enables devices to be more complex by adding a connectivity layer. Numerous GNSS platforms are continuing to advance in their ability to filter out noise and recognize positional data. The M10's Super-S technology aids in noise filtering and positional information detection. The device can simultaneously collect data from up to four GNSS constellations, even in challenging environments like urban canyons. The U-box scope in the examined market is expanding due to such technological advancements.

GNSS technology provides the availability, precision, and dependability required for a self-driving vehicle. An autonomous vehicle requires a localization solution and an accurate one. GNSS technology can offer decimeter-level accuracy to guarantee that a vehicle stays in its lane or maintains a safe distance from other vehicles. This is fueling the expansion of the automotive market.

Recent Developments

• February 2023- US chip supplier Qualcomm released two new system-on-chip (SoC) platforms, the Snapdragon W5+ and W5, for wearable devices such as smartwatches.
• January 2023- Synapticslaunched SYN4778, the lowest power, smallest, most accurate GNSS IC for IoT devices.