Mapping goes high-def

His comments are in line with Huawei's efforts to develop the internet of vehicles, or IoV, to bolster its core businesses. Back in 2013, it released self-developed ME909T vehicle module and pledged to invest hundreds of millions of dollars each year in research and development of the IoV.

Later, it signed cooperation agreements with vehicle manufacturers including Mercedes-Benz and Audi to offer its telecommunications module. Huawei has also deployed its Wi-Fi hotpots for Japanese carmaker Toyota.

"With Huawei's telecom base stations in over 160 countries and regions, it can offer more complementing information to satellite positioning data and thus provide better mapping services in the future," Xiang said.

Song Baicheng, a senior analyst from the Gasgoo Research Institute, a vehicle consultancy, said high-definition mapping services are heating up in China as they will play a critical role in achieving autonomous driving.

"For an autonomous vehicle, its most important role is to know and understand its position and surroundings. The high-definition map brings functions like high-precision localization, environment perception, planning and decision-making to autonomous vehicles," he said in an industry report on high-precision maps published by the Gasgoo Research Institute.

Compared to traditional navigation maps that are accurate to the "road level", high-precision maps can achieve information recognition at "lane level". They are able to recognize different obstacles such as non-motor vehicle lanes, road teeth and green belts, the report said.

Major Chinese tech companies such as Baidu Inc, Alibaba Group, and Tencent Holdings Ltd already have a presence in the high-definition mapping sector. Their presence has raised hopes of a potential market of 30 billion yuan ($4.2 billion) over the next few years, said CITIC Securities.