Executive Summary

Graph GIS has come of age
Geospatial information has come of age, the demand for geospatial is growing significantly and it is going to play a much more vital role in both public and private planning in a variety of sectors. In fact, geospatial information has become an integral component of planning of a variety of developmental activity. Be it urban planning, transportation, utilities like gas and power, ascertaining natural resources, social forestry and location-based services, you find applications in geospatial.

The Industry Size
The market size was put at Rs 6,830 million in four broad categories of software, hardware, data sales and services. While the first three components contributed Rs 3,370 million, service sector chipped in the remaining revenues. There, however, is a overlap of Rs 930 million in the form of purchases software and hardware products by the service segment. This segment added a value of Rs 2,524 m by developing products.

Obviously, it was the services segment that contributed the lion's share with Rs 3454 million, comprising 51 per cent of the total market. The contribution of other three components are: software (Rs 950 m); hardware (Rs 1,900 m); and data (Rs 520 m).
This really shows that what is being witnessed is just a tip of the iceberg, keeping in mind players in a wide variety of industrial, economic and social sectors beginning to put the GIS data into their planning.

Opportunity and Outlook
The base of users of GIS services is varied and expanding. By far, land resources is the biggest user of GIS services with Rs 1,410 m, comprising 24 per cent of the total services market of Rs 5,900 m in 2006-07. This is followed by Defence (Rs 1,150 m), Urban planning and natural resources (Rs 900 m each) and utilities (Rs 800 m).

The opportunity in urban planning is enormous. It is estimated that a city needs Rs 40 million. Considering the fact that we have 600 districts (even if we leave other big towns in those districts), the opportunity is pegged at Rs 24,000 m. Besides, 3D mapping projects such as Delhi State Spatial Data Infra Projects would further swell this figure to Rs 50,000 m. This, however, is in the long-term. In the short-term, the urban planning segment is likely to grow to Rs 2,240 m by 2011-12.

The local bodies apart, the Government itself is a major user of GIS, Ministries and Departments in Agriculture, Forestry, Marine, Petroleum and Water Resources will continue to drive growth in all the GIS segments -- data, software, hardware and services.

Some of the promising sectors and potential areas for GIS products are Petroleum, Energy, Telecom, Logistics, Health and Retail. These are just some of the many other sectors. There are others such as education and policing that offer new frontiers for GIS. We expect that the geospatial market would grow to Rs 23,064 m by 2011-12, growing at a CAGR of 31.3 per cent. We foresee that transportation and logistics segment would drive the growth, by wresting a share of 30.78 per cent. This will be followed by land records (23.6 per cent) and utilities (17.1 per cent).

Challenges
It, however, is not a cake walk. The Government should iron out certain issues that come in the way. Going by the responses of the respondents, we suggest the following for the healthy growth of the geospatial industry.
1. Allow Government organisations to conduct aerial surveys for a variety of sectors.
2. Set up a channel to distribute aerial images on the lines of NRSA for satellite images.
3. Ensure unhindered access to high resolution data of non-sensitive areas.
4. Bring distribution norms for satellite imageries on par with international standards.
5. Focus on getting high resolution images of urban areas keeping in mind the demand from utilities.

Market Report 2009

Market Report 2008