Google India on Thursday launched a new India-first feature on Google Maps where users can access their current location to find the Plus Codes address for their home.
Plus Codes are free, open-sourced, digital addresses that provide simple and accurate addresses for any place on Earth, including for places that don’t have accurate formal addresses. With this feature, Google is now scouting for opportunities to partner with to partner with e-commerce, logistics, and delivery companies.
Since its launch in 2018, Plus Codes have been adopted at scale by NGOs in India and governments. Instead of street and locality names, Plus Codes uses latitudes and longitudes which are displayed as a short sequence of numbers and letters, providing accuracy right up to the doorstep. Plus Codes also ease the discovery of and navigation to businesses.
‘Empowering users’
Amanda Bishop, Product Manager, Google Maps, said, “In addition to community-led efforts, we are also committed to empowering users to directly use Plus Code addresses for their daily needs. We piloted this feature in India a month ago, and are thrilled to share that over 3,00,000 users in India have already found their home’s address using Plus Codes. We are looking forward to expanding to more types of places, and are actively looking for opportunities to partner with e-commerce, logistics, and delivery companies, to scale up the experience to more people across the world.”
Plus Codes addresses can be accessed easily to get food, medicines, or parcels delivered, sending a location to friends or family, without going through the hassle of sharing approximate addresses with landmarks, or voice instructions that may be ambiguous.