SATNAV IN TALKS WITH 4 TELCOS FOR NAVIGATION SOLUTION

Chennai/Hyderabad
Business Standard Mail Today The Economic Times (Bangalore edition)

SatNav Technologies, a Hyderabad-based provider of navigation and global positioning system (GPS) technologies, is in talks with four major cellular operators – Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and BSNL – to offer its LCU (Lost? Need Directions? Call Us!) voice-based navigation direction service.

“We expect to forge revenue-sharing agreements with the four telcos and reach out to about 360 million mobile users in India within three months from now,” Amit Kishore Prasad, founder, managing director and chief executive of SatNav, said here on Wednesday.

LCU, a patented technology, is the latest variant of SatNav’s GPS navigation product SatGuide. The technology helps users get turn-by-turn directions with landmarks and distances on their phones by voice or SMS. The company has launched prepaid vouchers, which allow phone users from any telecom provider to get connected to a live trained agent.

SatNav, earlier a part of Satyam Computer Services Limited before being spun off into an independent entity in 2004, started the alpha phase of LCU in Hyderabad last August with 3,000 navigation enthusiasts and later extended the testing to Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. The beta phase testing started in November 2008 with 5,000 users.

Reliance Communication, which is already piloting LCU in Andhra Pradesh since February 2009 apart from Karnataka, Maharashtra, Delhi and the National Capital Region, has launched the service across the country. "The service will be offered to our over 56 million subscribers pan-India with a short code 56994 effective today,” said Swaminathan, regional head (Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka), Reliance Communications.

With maps covering about 1.5 million points of interest (PoIs) in over 200 cities and a million kilometres of road network in India, SatNav plans to soon make available the prepaid vouchers across 300 retail stores including Croma, Staples, eZone and HCL DigiLife with which it has tied up, to start with. “Our goal is to have 1,000 stores by 2010,” Prasad said.

SatNav reported revenues of Rs 6 crore last year and expects to close the current financial year with Rs 16 crore on the back of enhanced retail presence and distribution network.