LONDON — (BUSINESS WIRE) — September 1, 2016 — According to Valour Consultancy’s recently published study, “The Future of Commercial and Industrial UAVs”, sales of commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will be worth $3.4 billion by the end of 2016. The popular hobbyist market is becoming a “must-have” tool for a number of business use cases or service provider solutions, so much so, that commercial UAV unit sales are expected to increase by 128% in 2016 from 2015.

People are well aware of drone manufacturers such as DJI, Parrot, Yuneec or 3DR, and these types of aerial systems and the instrumentation they carry, are turning into critical tools for many companies. According to report author, Joshua Flood, the commercial UAV market is tremendously hard to quantify, with a large number of “prosumers” operating in the grey areas of regulation. “Even so, the introduction of mandatory licensing and certification from aviation and regulatory bodies around the world is making it easier to sort the real movers and shakers from the opportunists”.

Valour Consultancy estimates the high-end hobbyist/prosumer segment made up the bulk of the market in 2015 with more than a million units sold. Fixed-wing UAV shipments were far behind in third place, with only 5,200 units sold. Despite this, Flood expects sales of this UAV type to grow rapidly in the coming years, particularly for agriculture, power generation and environmental research projects. “By 2020, we anticipate nearly 90,000 fixed-wing UAVs will be in active deployment globally for commercial use”, he said.

The report also provides forecasts of UAV service revenues and identifies key differences by application. In the oil and gas sector, the average revenue per month for a drone is significantly higher; in the media and entertainment sector, much lower. Overall, total commercial drone service revenues already amount to a $3 billion global market and are projected to increase by almost a factor of ten in the next five years.

Valour Consultancy is a provider of high quality market intelligence. Its latest report “The Future of Commercial and Industrial UAVs” is the result of more than 30 interviews with a variety of key players and is an essential resource for tracking developments in this market. For a table of contents and report scope, visit: http://www.valourconsultancy.com/research/drones/commercial-drone-market/

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