As might be expected, with a huge increase in the availability and use of drones, the drone services market is projected to expand from $705 million in 2016 to $1.8 billion by 2022 according to a Crossroads Today report. That’s a compound annual growth rate of more than 70%.
One promising market is Public Safety Drones which reached $12 million last year as emergency medical services, firefighters, and police departments began adopting them to improve services. Other markets that have been able to capitalize on the availability of drones include aerial photography which has spawned a large number of firms competing for business in nearly every zip code in the United States.
The remote-sensing segment, especially for infrastructure projects, maintenance, mapping, and problem detection is expected to lead demand for drones and drone services in coming years. The fact that drones are becoming cheaper means the demand for them is going to increase.
One of the key components of the growth of drone services will be dealing with the large amount of high-quality data drones create. Image, video, sound, and sensor data, in real time, will require expert services of information professionals. Because of the sensitivity of some of this data, companies collecting data through drones will be required to meet regulations pertaining to data as well as regulations of the civilian airspace.
As time goes on, more public and commercial sectors of the economy will find a use for drones. Disaster risk management and mitigation have already benefited from drones, and more inspection of public works and environmental monitoring with also create greater demand. The agricultural sector is already heavily involved in the use of drones. As the farm becomes more automated, the use of drones will become more so too as they perform crop monitoring, crop inspection, pesticide spraying, and more.
Finally, drone delivery services, such as those planned by Amazon, will make drone services ever more ubiquitous. And the air delivery of drugs and medicine, as well as air ambulance services, will ramp up.
Following is a video that explains the global drone market.
