TOKYO -- Japan launched its own highly precise satellite positioning system Thursday, a move expected to generate new services worth nearly 5 trillion yen ($44.4 billion) by 2025 as players like SoftBank Group, Mitsubishi Electric and Hitachi plan applications in automated driving, farming and more.
"Our lifestyles would be impossible without GPS," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the ceremony marking the start of the service, referring to the widely used U.S.-made Global Positioning System. The Michibiki satellite constellation, known officially as the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System, would let Japan turn "a new page in history," he continued.
