This week, as the most far-sighted and creative technologies wow the masses and media at CES 2015, ABI is out with a new report that points to how the Small Unmanned Arial Systems (sUAS) market is growing like wildfire.
With drones an increasingly hot topic of discussion in tech today, ABI says the SUAS market will surpass $8.4 billion by 2018.
By 2019 the Commercial sector will dominate the overall sUAS market with revenues exceeding $5.1 billion (51% 2014 to 2019 CAGR), roughly 5x larger than the Prosumer/Hobby market, and 2.3x greater than the Military/Civil market segment.
“Ongoing research advancements, technological developments, and rapidly dropping prices for increasingly capable enabling technologies, have combined to remove barriers to innovation and commercialization, and spur the development of new sUAS and increase the ways they can be applied,” ABI’s report summary reads.
Dan Kara, Practice Director of Robotics at ABI Research, says the commercial sector “is the sweet spot for the sUAS market,” a fact recognized by both traditional defense industry suppliers such as Elbit Technologies, AeroVironment, and Aeryon Labs, as well as providers to the Prosumer/Hobbyist marketplace including DJI, Parrot, SenseFly, 3D Robotics, and others.
“As a result,” Kara adds, “both groups of sUAS makers, along with other classes of solution providers, are aggressively targeting the Commercial sector through acquisitions, internal development, partnerships and investment.”
