Drone Ecosystem
Finding the Money for Service Providers
How much can commercial drone pilots make? What industries pay the most? And more. Improvements in drone products and regulatory changes have caused a wave of photographers and other professionals to become commercial drone pilots. This may mean joining a services firm or going at it alone as a “droneprenuer”. The rise of drone service … Read more
Participate in Our 2021 Market Survey
Have your voice heard in the industry’s longest running annual survey We just announced our fifth Drone Market Sector Survey, established to provide clear benchmarks for the industry. This survey is the online research portion of our upcoming 2021 Market Sector Report (to be released in September), and will provide a comprehensive look across drone … Read more
The Rise of Open-Source Drones
Amidst Global Tensions and A Surge of New Manufacturers, Open-Source Has Risen as a Key Winner With much of the industry discussing the pressures on DJI, rise of Blue sUAS offerings such as the Skydio X2 and the promise of autonomous drones, there has been one consistent force driving many of these larger trends. That … Read more
How Large is the Drone Market?
New DroneAnalyst Research Dives into Market Size in Initial Hardware Sector Report The history of the drone industry is also the history of hype and oversized forecasts. Whether that be the tale of Lily Robotics or Goldman’s $100 Billion market estimate by 2020, we’ve seen it all. And it’s understandable, drones are a new, unique … Read more
Why the Industry Still Relies on DJI
Despite geopolitical tensions and security concerns, the drone industry’s reliance on DJI remains firm. We explore why. While headlines have focused on DJI drones being “banned” or “blacklisted” from the US market, many following the industry will know just how little impact these US government actions have had on the majority of drone sales and DJI’s market dominance. While it … Read more
Catching Up on Blue sUAS and US Military Purchases of UAS
The Start of 2021 Has Revealed Winners and Challenges Behind the Shift to a US Domestic Drone Industry As we have revealed last year, 2020 saw a resurgence in US drone manufacturers, recouping lost market share by reaching similar levels as 2017. Despite this shift, the industry is still far away from both broad competition … Read more
Drone Channel Mayhem – DJI Rewrites the Rules
DJI Moves to Sell Its Enterprise Drones Online, with Impacts to the Broader Drone Ecosystem Last Friday, DJI reversed direction and moved to sell much of its enterprise products online. DJI had previously exclusively sold its powerful, expensive and complicated enterprise products solely through distributors like RMUS, DroneNerds, Heliguy and more, with over 100 US-based … Read more
Drones Are Doing More In U.S. Than You May Know, As These 3 Companies Show
Five years ago, the pundits predicted that by now we would be seeing tens of thousands of drones buzzing over our heads delivering everything from pizzas and burritos to the latest “must-have” item from Amazon. So what happened? Where are they? In a nutshell, they are here, but the general public doesn’t see them—at least … Read more
Three Forces That Shaped the Drone Industry in 2018
This was a big year for the commercial drone industry as a whole. It saw a significant increase in the business adoption, the expansion of the FAA’s LAANC program (the Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability that provides access to controlled airspace near airports), the launch of the UAS Integration Pilot Program from the FAA … Read more
Four Commercial Drone Trends to Watch in 2018
In my last post, Five Biggest Commercial Drone Trends of 2017 and the Challenges Ahead, I used data from our 2017 Drone Market Sector Report to illustrate the major trends of the past year and describe the major challenges ahead for the drone industry. That post looked back, but this one looks forward, offering our … Read more