With major expansion plans, China's satellite navigation industry will emerge as the third IT economic growth sector by 2015 next only to mobile communication and Internet with an output value of over USD 35 billion, a think tank report said.

Among others, China's satellite navigation industry set to launch 30 satellites this year and expand the foot prints of its own navigation system to compete with US Global Position System, (GPS).

The annual output value of China's satellite navigation industry is estimated to reach more than 225 billion yuan (USD35.64 billion) in 2015, a research report by a think-tank under the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation said.

The industry would become the country's third new IT economic growth point, after mobile communication and Internet, it said.

More than 5,000 Chinese firms and organisations were now involved in the application and services of satellite navigation and the industry generated more than 50 billion yuan of output value in 2010, according to the report, published by the Social Sciences Academic Press.

China aims to increase the total number of satellite navigation terminals used by the public across the country to 340 million by 2015, state run Xinhua reported.

China began to build its Beidou Navigation Satellite System in 2000 with a goal of breaking its dependence on the US Global Positioning System (GPS) and creating its own global positioning system by 2020.

The homegrown Beidou system began providing initial positioning, navigation and timing operational services to China and its surrounding areas from late last month.

Six more satellites will be launched in 2012 to further expand its service area to cover most parts of the Asia-Pacific region, according to the management office of the China Satellite Navigation System.

China Aerospace and Technology Corporation (CASC) it plans to launch 21 rockets with 30 satellites in 2012.

Last year, China launched 20 rockets with 25 satellites to become the world's second country after Russia in terms of the amount of space launches.