Keyshare Exec on Entering the Competitive Drone Market

Sponsored by Keyshare Technologies  —

What happens when a selfie stick encounters drone technology? What spark can they produce? The spark is the selfie drone, Kimon!

Kimon is a major product from the Keyshare Information Technology Company released in 2016. The idea came about when one of the co-founders watched a group of people try taking a selfie. He noticed the selfie stick was too short and could not take a perfect shot of the entire group. He thought, “I have a solution to this problem.

As a UAV professional he thought “a flying robot in the air” can easily solve this problem, and he pushed the business!
The Kimon is defined as “the flying selfie drone.”It incorporates complicated and difficult aerial algorithms enabling mobile phone users to take complex photos that require only one key operation.

Li Hong compares the current market size of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with the early advent of the digital camera. The first digital cameras were very expensive and the market was very small. It was a luxury product for a minority of people. But after a few years, almost every family had a digital camera.,Mr. Hong believes the same will occur with consumer drones.

While the drone market is a hot market, Li Hong also thinks that drone market needs to evolve further.

“UAVs will be more intelligent in future. It needs more so-called black science and technology to be applied such as intelligent obstacle avoidance.”
At present, the Keyshare Information Technology has more than 200 employees, including more than 80 dedicated to research and development. They have a total of 108 patents pending, second only to DJI.

In terms of UAV development of civil UAV, Li Hong said, there are two factors: technological development and consumer’s control of drones. Regarding the latter, drone control, Li Hong said, at present it is better for consumers to use a remote controller to control drone flight. Wrist watches and fobs can be used to control drones but the market for them is not very mature.

In terms of technology, Li Hong identified 3 key developments: flight information acquisition and processing, wireless communication and artificial intelligence. Keyshare Information Technology has accumulated much experience in each of these areas.

When a drone is in flight, it collects information in real time from its surrounding environment and processes that information based on accurate and stable algorithms, many of which have been migrated from the military technology.

Drones benefit from continued military development and innovation. For example, machine vision, artificial intelligence based on image processing technology, is widely used in military, as is precision positioning of missile and target recognition. Keyshare employs these technologies into its UAV products. They include the function of indoor positioning based on machine vision, visual tracking and visual obstacle avoidance,making drones safer and more intelligent.

To compete in the consumer drone market, price competitiveness is key. Li Hong explained, “At present, drones are still in an early stage driven by powerful technology. They have not reached the monopoly stage.”

“When the smartphone was born, Apple was in a dominant position. But after years of development, Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi gained significant market share. Competition in the drone market will follow a similar path. Keyshare can meet the challenge through product and marketing differentiation.”

“The consumer drone market was created by DJI. It is difficult for a start-up like Keyshare to break in” Li Hong said, “but we are confident that our strategy of delivering better functionality at a lower price combined with effective brand promotion will lead to success.”