European navigation system Galileo works on a billion smartphones

The European satellite navigation system Galileo works on one billion smartphones. The European GNSS Agency, now 15 years old, says the GPS counterpart works on other devices as well. As a result, the number of compatible devices may be even higher.

The record figure comes from the number of smartphones with Galileo support that have been sold, according to the European GNSS Agency. According to the GSA, 95 percent of smartphone chips now support Galileo. With that, almost all phones sold since 2016 are compatible with the system.

The actual number of active devices with Galileo would be higher. Galileo is also used, for example, for navigation systems in cars or individual cabinets. The organization expects to sell more than 2.7 billion devices that work with Galileo by 2029. Galileo can be used in addition to the American GPS and often in combination.

Galileo is the European counterpart of GPS. The navigation system is officially still in the development phase and now consists of 26 satellites. That should eventually be 30. The system ended up costing billions of euros more than initially planned and was largely financed by taxpayers’ money against its promises. Moreover, the system is not yet working properly; Galileo was offline for over a week in July.