A new research report by MarketsandMarkets paints a less than enthusiastic picture of the short-term (non-military) Small UAV market.
MarketsandMarkets (M&M), a Dallas-based market research and consulting firm has recently published a study on the small UAV/drone market entitled Small UAV Market by Trends – Global Forecast 2014-2019. The study costs $4,650 for a single user license. Although focused on military applications, the study does break out non-military applications and financial projections.
Vinode Singh Ujlain, Retired Commander of the Indian Navy who heads the Aerospace & Defense group at M&M predicts that the “Global Small UAV market size in 2015 is $24.86 million and it will reach $38.70 million in 2016 for non-military (civil) applications.” The study does not include companies producing drones and UAVs primarily for hobbyist such as DJI Innovations.  DJI’s sales were reported to be over $130 Million last year.  DJI CEO Frank Wang believes that his drones are sold beyond the hobbyist market for applications in surveillance, planning, film production and advertising.
Vinode Singh Ujlain believes that the current euphoria is unsustainable. “On the whole , despite the promise and plans of big vendors (Amazon, Facebook etc.), given the security scenario all over the world and easy options that SUAV provide for miscreants, I don’t see much permissions for SUAV for non-government players.” He does point to the first commercial applications focused on wild life monitoring, disaster relief operations , aerial photography (sports ,news) , and traffic control & monitoring.