Baidu Maps Adds HarmonyOS Indoor Navigation for 106 Malls Across 22 Cities

Baidu Maps has introduced a dedicated indoor-navigation feature for its HarmonyOS version, initially covering 106 large commercial venues and popular shopping malls in 22 cities. The service uses Huawei's positioning technology, according to IT Home's November 7 report on Baidu Maps' announcement.

The feature is designed to guide users from a mall entrance to a particular shop, including movements between floors. Baidu says floor switching happens automatically and navigation continues between outdoor and indoor spaces without requiring users to change modes manually. Finding an entrance or taking an elevator are among the scenarios highlighted in the announcement.

The coverage figures describe the first batch of venues for this HarmonyOS-specific rollout, not the size of Baidu Maps' entire indoor-mapping database. The report does not give a city-by-city venue list, a detailed handset compatibility table or a timetable for extending coverage to additional malls.

The launch follows Huawei's October 12 briefing on positioning across tunnels, elevated roads, garages, sports tracks and retail buildings. Huawei described a collection of techniques tailored to those settings rather than a single positioning method applied unchanged everywhere. Pandaily covered that technical briefing at the time.

For retail navigation, Huawei said its wider location-service infrastructure supported 500,000 commercial-district geofences and indoor positioning in 17,000 buildings. Its own Petal Maps app offered shop-level navigation in more than 260 malls. Those Huawei and Petal Maps figures are separate from Baidu's new 106-venue rollout and should not be treated as places already supported by this Baidu Maps feature.

The earlier briefing also described GNSS carrier-phase measurements and a HiSilicon short-range chip for lane-level navigation, as well as RTK combined with AI-based pedestrian dead reckoning for sports tracks. The sub-meter accuracy cited for road navigation is not an accuracy specification for the new indoor service.

The concrete change is the integration of Huawei's positioning capabilities into Baidu Maps' HarmonyOS indoor-navigation experience. The announcement establishes an initial venue count and floor-aware guidance, but does not provide an independent accuracy test or evidence that every indoor area within a covered mall is supported.

SEE ALSO: Huawei Details Positioning for Tunnels, Parking Garages and Indoor Navigation