Today DroneDeploy released their second Report on Commercial Drone Industry Trends. The new report is based on 5 million acres mapped, up from the 2 million acres the initial report was based on (that report was released last March). DroneDeploy is seeing significant increase in acres mapped on its platform and it is growing quickly. Whether a report based on data from a single solution provider is an accurate barometer of market growth might be questioned by a professional statistician; but, regardless, it is clearly good news for the industry and one might hope that PrecisionHawk, Kespry and others follow DroneDeploy’s lead.
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The original report was released last March and based on real-world mapping data from 2 million drone mapped acres, which took DroneDeploy users 16 months to accrue. Here it is 4 months later and DroneDeploy users have more than doubled the mapped area in a quarter of the time.
“It’s amazing to see the growth and evolution of the commercial drone industry,” said Mike Winn, CEO and co-founder, DroneDeploy. “In just a matter of months we’ve seen a notable increase in the number of businesses integrating drones more deeply into their workflows, namely in the Agriculture, Construction and Service Provider sectors. Equally exciting, is the emergence of new rapidly growing sectors, such as Inspection and Oil & Gas.”
Data highlights from the report include but are not limited to:
- Mining is the fastest growing industry where drones are being used to monitor site progress, measure aggregate volumes and ensure regulatory compliance
- Oil & Gas is a rapidly emerging sector for drones. This sector has the largest average drone map at 178 acres (72 hectares), which is largely driven by mapping pipeline installations.
- Not surprisingly, DJI is the dominant drone
- The US and the United Kingdom are seeing the greatest use of drones
- In addition to crop scouting and yield estimation, new uses for drones in agriculture are emerging, includingplant coun2ng and stand establishment analysis.
You can download the report here.
Frank Schroth is editor in chief of DroneLife, the authoritative source for news and analysis on the drone industry: it’s people, products, trends, and events.
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