Peers in the GIS industry usually spend their days tracking technology releases and tenders. Every now and then, we hear news about a company going public. Has anyone else ever wondered, like I have, exactly which companies in our field are publicly listed? How big is the market‑cap gap between them? Are any of them worth a closer look? Today I’ve lined up some familiar names, grouped into platform software, remote sensing applications, surveying engineering, automotive & location intelligence, plus a few overseas heavyweights — hopefully a useful reference for anyone who needs it.

A note from the editor: The share prices come from public market data and media reports. The rough sizes are mostly calculated by multiplying the stock price by the total number of shares, with RMB figures converted at approximate exchange rates. Many of these companies straddle several sectors; I’ve only focused on the part that is closely tied to geospatial technology. This is purely industry information exchange and should not be taken as investment advice.

What Counts as a GIS, Remote Sensing, or Surveying Public Company?

Strictly defined, very few companies that only do these three things are listed on the main board by themselves. What you see more often in the market are these categories:

  • GIS platform software: desktop, web and 3D GIS, spatiotemporal data middle‑platforms, digital twin foundations
  • Remote sensing data and applications: satellite or aerial imagery, InSAR, industry‑specific interpretation, aerospace information operations
  • Surveying and geospatial engineering: Grade‑A surveying qualifications, 3D reality models, pipeline networks and smart city O&M
  • Mapping and location: in‑vehicle HD maps, positioning chips and terminals

Below is a brief introduction to the companies I’ve collected so far. Domestic companies are ordered by market capitalization.

Zhongke Xingtu (Geovis Technology, 688568)

A‑share listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market. Its digital earth, aerospace information, low‑altitude economy and commercial aerospace revenues are on the rise. The company’s overall market cap has wavered within a broad range of roughly RMB 44–53 billion. Its 2025 annual report showed revenue of RMB 2.677 billion, with profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company of about RMB 29 million. Profitability looks poor in the short term, but the growth pace of its emerging businesses is still something the market is watching.

Huace Navigation (300627)

A‑share listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange ChiNext Board. It covers RTK, 3D laser, unmanned survey vessels and deformation monitoring. Thanks to its early‑built overseas distribution network, its earning power is relatively strong among equipment stocks. Its market cap has often hovered around the RMB 20‑odd billion level, pushing toward the RMB 30 billion area when sentiment is good. The share price moves largely with infrastructure construction starts, surveying equipment replacement cycles and overseas orders.

NavInfo (002405)

A‑share listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Main Board. Its business spans HD maps, automotive intelligence and location big data. Its market cap is in the order of RMB 20–22 billion, driven by the narratives around intelligent driving and OEM orders. Its overall size comfortably overshadows that of most pure GIS software companies.

BDStar Navigation (002151)

A‑share listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Main Board. It covers chips, boards, antennas, high‑precision positioning services and industry applications all under one roof. In military, automotive and IoT stories it is often treated as a dual‑theme play combining “BeiDou” and “semiconductors”. Its market cap has often swung in the band above RMB 20 billion, closely tracking defense and broad tech themes. Historically, the company has made many M&A deals.

Global Safety Technology (300523)

A‑share listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange ChiNext Board. Its focus is smart cities, public safety and emergency command. In these projects you frequently see spatiotemporal basemaps, emergency response “one‑map” platforms and GIS all layered together — the drivers here are not the same as those for RTK boards and antennas, yet it often bumps into GIS vendors in tenders. Its market cap mostly stays inside the RMB 10 billion range, moving in sync with local government finances and specialized science & technology programs.

SuperMap Software (300036)

A‑share listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange ChiNext Board. It provides home‑grown GIS platform software and industry applications. Its market cap has long hovered around RMB 7–8 billion. A typical GIS software stock, its share price is tightly linked to government IT spending and the domestic substitution (Xinchuang) cycle.

Zhengyuan Geomatics (688509)

A‑share listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market. Its businesses cover surveying and geospatial information, pipeline networks and smart cities. The company has a relatively small market cap that often stays in the RMB single‑digit billions according to public market data, with large percentage swings.

Cehui Stock (Nanjing Institute of Surveying, Mapping & Geotechnical Investigation, 300826)

A‑share listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange ChiNext Board. It focuses on surveying engineering and geographic information services. It falls squarely in the contract‑driven engineering surveying service group. Its market cap tends to move with the rhythm of new orders and local government spending.

UniStrong (002383)

A‑share listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Main Board. It works on high‑precision positioning, measurement & surveying and spatial information applications. Overseas compliance issues and lawsuits in earlier years battered market expectations through several cycles. In recent years its size has mostly been in the RMB single‑digit billions. The stock has seen wild swings, with profitability swinging between losses and thin profits — more like a roller‑coaster ride among equipment names.

Piesat Information Technology (688066)

A‑share listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market. It combines remote sensing with specialized industry IT. Due to consecutive losses and risk events, the exchange has issued a delisting risk warning, and the stock abbreviation now carries a star and “ST”. Media reports once placed its market cap around the RMB 4 billion level. Its 2025 revenue was about RMB 450 million, and the company suffered heavy losses.

Trimble (TRMB)

U.S.‑listed on NASDAQ. The veteran American survey and positioning technology company, touching surveying instruments, precision agriculture, construction BIM, and geospatial software. According to third‑party market data, from the end of Q1 2026 to early May the company’s overall market cap was roughly in the USD 15–16 billion range — somewhat softer than the peak at the end of 2025, down by more than 10% this year.

Hexagon AB (HEXA‑B)

Listed in Sweden on the Stockholm OMX. It owns surveying and industrial metrology brands such as Leica Geosystems, alongside a broad footprint in industrial software and digital reality. In public market data its market cap has often been in the USD 25–30 billion band, fluctuating with the Swedish krona and its share price. It remains the benchmark on the European side for the “surveying plus industrial software” play.

Planet Labs (PL)

U.S.‑listed on the New York Stock Exchange. One of the representatives of the “satellite data plus analytics services” segment in commercial remote sensing. The company’s own reports show double‑digit revenue growth, and recent earnings communications have indicated that both book profitability and cash on hand are looking better than last year. Historically the stock has been extremely volatile — a growth story layered on top of huge swings.

Garmin (GRMN)

U.S.‑listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Focused mainly on consumer navigation and outdoor gear. It sits some distance away from the professional GIS software chain, but they all belong in the big bucket of location services.

Maxar

Was once publicly listed in the U.S. and has since been taken private.

Esri

Not listed. Yet it’s the company with the highest mindshare in GIS software globally. It’s easy to leave Esri out when counting “GIS public companies”, yet impossible to avoid when doing competitive benchmarking.

A quick takeaway

Among domestic names sporting the “remote sensing” label, the market‑cap gap and risk profile between the leaders and the stragglers can span an order of magnitude: some are still battling for orders and growth in the RMB tens‑of‑billions to more than RMB 50 billion range, while others have already been saddled with a star‑ST delisting risk label (yes, that company that still owes salaries to its employees). On the GIS platform software side, most market caps fall within the RMB 10 billion range. In the BeiDou chain and surveying equipment group, you can find sizes anywhere from a few billion to around RMB 30 billion, with share prices moving more in step with chips, defense and engineering cycles. Overseas, Trimble plus Hexagon remain the backbone of publicly traded surveying‑geospatial hardware and industrial software, with market caps measured in the tens of billions of U.S. dollars. Automotive map leaders like NavInfo often command a larger market cap than traditional GIS software vendors — the market is simply more willing to pay for the incremental story of vehicle‑side growth and intelligent driving expectations.

Public companies in the geospatial information industry sell spatiotemporal data capabilities, and their customers sit in directions such as government, national defense, infrastructure, automotive and global supply chains — which perfectly illustrates the cross‑cutting nature of our GIS field. Of course, my list here is just about GIS and remote sensing; there are many more surveying instrument and equipment companies that I haven’t included. Feel free to add your own suggestions!