The company’s cloud mapping (SaaS) services, too, are used by many companies like Paytm, PhonePe, Amazon, Alexa voice, Flipkart, Uber, Ola and Grofers (now Blinkit) for planning, operations, and customer experience.

The company has about 5,000 enterprise customers, including Apple, HDFC Bank, Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Mahindra, Mercedez-Benz, Coca-Cola, Marico, Hindustan Unilever, Airtel, Uber, PhonePe and even some government institutions like the Central Board of Taxes (CBDT), says Verma. The company now wants to use that resource to win over the Google Maps consumer.īut first, let’s take a look at how it has gone about making its mark. Over the last 25 years, MapmyIndia surveys collected hundreds of attributes about every location including building footprints, doorsteps, floor numbers, flat numbers, photographs, and types of buildings, all of which have helped the company create a data repository. Our surveyors have walked and driven millions of kilometres using professional survey equipment and moderated (the data) in the office,' he says.

It sometimes leads to places that do not exist or makes one drive down narrow roads on a four-wheeler because much of the data would have been provided by two-wheeler riders. Verma believes that Google Maps’ method of crowdsourcing data is less reliable than his company’s. MapmyIndia offers a range of enterprise solutions, including digital maps as a service (MaaS), software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), application programming interfaces (APIs), and internet of things (IoT) solutions to companies, automotive makers, government bodies, and developers and consumers in the Indian and global markets. “But we are strong in the enterprise segment, and we are much more than a maps company,' says Rakesh.

But why has MapmyIndia not been able to scale up despite the first-mover advantage? “The primary reason we are not very well known in the country is that we are not as pervasive in the consumer space, whereas Google Maps comes pre-loaded on Android smartphones,' says chairman and managing director, and co-founder of MapmyIndia, Rakesh Verma.

Google map satellite 360 view