Report: Drone Mapping is Getting Bigger, Smarter and Popular

In January, drone software platform DroneDeploy “talked the talk,” offering several predictions about the UAV sector for 2018. Now, the company is “walking the walk” with an in-depth industry report.

The San Francisco-based firm this week released a 14-page report outlining major trends based on customer data from 180 nations.

Key Findings

• Among DroneDeploy customers, construction firms are the leading sector with 238 percent growth followed by agriculture (172 percent) and real estate (171 percent). The average customer creates five maps per week. Customers use DroneDeploy products such as “Live Map (the only tool on the market allowing customers to produce real-time drone maps in the field via mobile) and Progress Photos (this tool lets you plan and capture aerial job site photos).”
• Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning solutions continue to expand across all industries following DroneDeploy’s deployment of nearly 100 million aerial images into a repository which then informs AI software in making more accurate decisions and models.
• DroneDeploy’s App Market has doubled in the last year with more than 2,000 developers adding 50 new tools across 10 industries. “There have been more than 120,000 app installs, representing a 445 percent increase in 2017,” the report states.

A bigger market does not mean a more expensive one. The report states most commercial drone mapping is performed by lower-priced drones:

“Despite manufacturers such as Autel, Yuneec and Parrot introducing new drone platforms, DJI remains the leader in the industry with an estimated market share of up to 85 percent. However, the introduction of enterprise-focused drone models by DJI, Yuneec, and others have just started to make an impact on the mapping community. While there was an uptick in the use of enterprise platforms such as the DJI M200 series, 90 percent of commercial mapping still occurs on drone models that cost less than $1,500.”

“The applications are getting increasingly sophisticated— sometimes replacing entire workflows—making jobs safer, data more accurate, and increasing efficiency,” DroneDeploy CEO Mike Winn states in the report:

“So, what does the data have to say? Drones have become an everyday tool, and as our industry matures, so too has the use of drone data. The data speaks to the intelligence drones provide companies as they use aerial insights daily to understand the way the world changes.”

Winn adds that DroneDeploy has witnessed a five-fold increase in enterprise customer growth since 2016. “As the average size of an enterprise drone team grew to 5 pilots, the number of commercial drones registered increased 2.5 times.”