Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, has announced that all smartphones must be NavIC-enabled by the end of 2025. This requirement extends to 5G smartphones by January 1, 2025, and all other mobile phones by December 2025.
NavIC, short for Navigation with Indian Constellation, was developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The government is considering offering incentives to encourage the use of Indian-designed NavIC-supporting chips in system designs through future production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes.
“In line with the incentives that we have announced under the IT hardware PLI (production-linked incentive), where cashback to companies can significantly go up if they use India-designed or -manufactured chips in their systems, we will extend the same idea to the smartphone PLI as well for using domestic chips that support NavIC,” Chandrasekhar told reporters on Thursday.
“We want to create an incentive structure that will encourage companies under the PLI schemes to use NavIC-supporting chips designed or made in India,” Chandrasekhar said.
Incentives similar to those under the IT hardware PLI could be offered to smartphone makers in the revised scheme. He did not specify the timeline for when the revised scheme will be brought out.
Under the IT hardware PLI scheme, companies that manufacture laptops, computers, and servers and source locally made components, including chips, will get additional incentives.
“When we have a mobile phone grid chip, which is performance-competitive, cost-competitive, we will certainly incentivize mobile phone devices to incorporate that as well.”
He added that the government has already made it mandatory in the automobile segment to use GPS that uses the NavIC chipsets.
Chandrasekhar clarified that the requirement would be for incorporating NavIC in addition to other GPS systems that are already in use.
These include the US’s Global Positioning System (GPS), Russia’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), the European Union’s Galileo, China’s BeiDou, and Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS).
NavIC uses seven satellites that cover India and neighboring areas, including the Indian Ocean region. The independent navigation satellite system will improve further when more satellites are added to the existing network, which will enable NavIC to be available in other countries as well.
Apple is the latest adopter of NavIC, while some Chinese brands such as Xiaomi, Poco, Oppo, Vivo, and OnePlus use the system in some of their models.
Most smartphones enable the use of all navigation systems for developers, and with NavIC getting adopted by Apple, among other systems, the doors for the Indian system’s global development will also open up.
“Chandrayaan 3, ISRO’s successful launch of the Aditya L1, its maiden solar mission, and the mainstream acceptance of the NavIC technology shows India’s growing power as a space nation,” Chandrasekhar said.
