Geomaticians

India Wants Smartphones To Support Home-grown Navigation System Navic Starting 2025; RTI Reveals

India Wants Smartphones To Support Home-grown Navigation System Navic Starting 2025; RTI Reveals
In September, Reuters reported that the Indian government is pushing smartphone manufacturers like Samsung, Oppo, Apple, and Xiaomi to make their smartphones compatible with Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC), the home-grown alternative to US's Global Positioning System (GPS). A recent RTI response obtained by journalist Aroon Deep of Entrakr sheds more light on the government's efforts and the manufacturers' objections to the push, as well as the expected timeline. While Reuters reported that the government had asked the manufacturers to enable NavIC support starting January 2023, the RTI response suggests that this has been pushed to January 2025 based on the requests by industry stakeholders.