Nokia's navigation software and application division, Nokia Location & Commerce (known as Navteq before being acquired by Nokia for $ 8.1 billion) is quitely working on a big plan to map the whole of India, and facilitate handset vendors and telecom operators to offer a range of navigation, and location based services to the growing population of Indian consumers.
According to Rajat Tandon, country director, sales, Nokia L&C, "we already have extensively mapped over 4000 cities, including rural areas, 6.25 million points of interact, which include offices, malls, schools, hospitals, bus stands, historical monuments, and so on." He further added that "Nokia L&C has also covered 1.28 million kms of roads with all the turns, roundabouts, and flyovers". The company currently has over 1000 people out in the field in 20 cities covering the country, and this information is updated on a quarterly basis.
Considering the size and potential of the Indian market, there is a special India focus. According to Tarun Harnathka, Director South Asia for Product Development, "Keeping in mind the local diversity in the country, their voice command based navigation solution is available in all Indian languages. As per a recent survey done to gauge the level of awareness and adoption of maps and navigation, we found that 87% of the respondents know about such solutions and would consider using them. This is a very encouraging." The company has one R&D center, and 2 production centers in Mumbai.
Location based services (LBS) help handset vendors and telecom operators in offering a range of services like maps and navigation, traffic updates, entertainment, shopping, vehicle tracking, weather updates, health, social networking, ATM, and so on. These services open up new revenue streams for operators as well a shandset vendors. According to Voice&Data estimates, almost 20% of a total of 600 plus million mobile phones in use in India have some smartphone features, which is essential to access LBS. Market experts believe that the money spent on LBS in India is expected to be close to $165 million by 2014.
