Cloud-based mapping software specialists, GapMaps, has expanded datasets in GapMaps Live in India, providing brands with unprecedented insights and intelligence to strengthen their location decision-making. GapMaps Live is a simple-to-use location intelligence platform which helps organisations make better location decisions by integrating the latest socio demographic,
prosperity, customer and competitor intel.

“Until now, access to quality data across Asia and the Middle East has been challenging for brands to make more informed location decisions,” said Anthony Villanti, GapMaps Managing Director and Founder.

The new datasets now accessible in GapMaps Live across India include:

• Consuming Class – SEC A-E socio-economic data, which identifies households and consumers that can afford to buy goods and services beyond those required for their basic needs, is provided at a micro level which is essential for market planning and location feasibility purposes. GapMaps provides a deeper understanding of the relative distribution of the consuming class down to a 150 metres grid level. This data is shown to be highly correlated with store performance for the majority of the brands using the platform.

• Gridded Population – GapMaps provides micro area population estimates (down to 150 metres) more frequently and up to date than the traditional lag in government or third party data, using the latest data from mobile device estimates. This ensures population estimates can be provided for retail stores with the smallest of catchment areas. Additionally, GapMaps provides worker population numbers, which is unique to GapMaps Live.

• Business Location Data (POI – Points of Interest) – in all markets GapMaps tracks a set number of competitor and reference brands in key industry sectors, across thousands of locations. This is updated regularly and provides valuable competitor and sector insights in particular catchment areas.

• Traffic Data – GapMaps provides visibility of areas with low and high two-way traffic volumes and percentage of passing traffic by time of day across all major tier 1 cities in India so brands can make more informed site selection decisions.

• Retail Spending Data – GapMaps provides household spending estimates so brands can understand what households within their catchments spend their money on, broken down by key retail categories including Food and Beverage, Groceries, Apparel and other non-food items.

“These updated datasets ensure we provide our clients with more complete country coverage and the visualisation of key variables at different geographic levels,” continued Villanti.

“Historically in many countries we support across Southeast Asia, India and MENA have an over reliance on government or other third party data in has meant brands have been relying on information that in some cases may be up to 10 years old, or even non-existent. Additionally, geographically the available data may be just at ward level so you cannot understand what happens
at the local level. From a network planning perspective, that means there are lots of gaps that will impact the quality of your location decision-making,” added Villanti.

The expanded data directories in GapMaps Live across India ensures brands in fitness, fast food, café, convenience stores and shopping centres can access more accurate insights to inform their store expansion strategies. GapMaps accesses mobile device or human movement data so brands can see where people spend their time and identify the relative population density between
different locations.

Globally, GapMaps Live is used by more than 500 renowned brands across 23 countries in sectors such as QSR, café and fitness, helping them expand their store networks in Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

Anytime Fitness, which operates 110 fitness clubs across India says the GapMaps Live platform has enabled greater precision in its decision-making when opening new locations.

“GapMaps Live allows us to easily analyse catchments across multiple cities in India and make confident decisions on optimal locations for new gyms using validated data,” said Mayank Bhatia, Anytime Fitness Regional Franchise Sales Manager. “ Being able to access and visualise key insights in the platform such as population density, prosperity, retail & infrastructure layers in 150 metre grids has fast-tracked the approval process for planned new locations. We are now in a great position to expand our club footprint with confidence in the coming years.”

“At GapMaps, we provide insights on the potential of a market, not only in the major Tier 1 cities, but also in Tier 2 – 7 cities across India. This enables brands to quickly prioritise which cities to expand their networks, and in those markets, where to locate stores using high quality and granular data,” added Villanti.

“Key to our success and the success of our clients is that GapMaps provides brands with uniform data quality, whether it’s in India, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, The Philippines or the Middle East.

“The gap between data rich and data poor countries has never been tighter and GapMaps is uniquely positioned where our customers first make informed choices about how many stores to establish in their target market and second, where the catchments are that have greater revenue potential,” Villanti concluded.