According to a white paper released by the State Council, the Beidou Satellite system will rely on 18 more satellites by 2018 and a total of 35 satellites by 2020, serving the land and maritime Silk Roads. The sytem will have short-message communication service useful in places with insufficient ground and mobile communication capabilities, such as deserts, seas and disaster areas where communication facilities have been destroyed. More than 40,000 fishing vessels along China’s coastline have been equipped with the BDS application terminals. China is developing chips, modules and other basic products based on the the Beidou system fostering an independent industrial chain. It is expected that by the end of this year, up to 50 million mobile phones will have been installed with domestic chips that will be compatible with three satellite navigation systems, namely Beidou, GPS and Russia’s GLONASS
CAS news release, June 18, 2016