Drone market will hit $22.15 billion by 2022

The drone market is a big success story for China manufacturers. A new report from Statistics MRC projects the global drone market will reach $22.15 billion by 2022, from $5.93 billion in 2015. This gives a CAGR of 20.7 percent, and China manufacturers will reap many of the benefits of that growth.

China brands were quick to capitalize on rising demand for consumer drones, and larger brands such as DJI helped create that development. Today, 85 percent of the consumer drone market consists of China brands. Many of these China companies have also been branching out to the commercial sector, which is where much of the future growth is expected.

PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that the commercial use of drones is currently worth $127 billion, and that value is projected to climb. New applications for drones are multiplying and more businesses are adopting drones for abilities they already have. These include property surveying and power line inspection. The good news for foreign companies is that they will be able to gain from the value commercial drones bring to their industries, even if the drone sector outside China has trouble keeping up.

This is not to say that drone innovation outside China is dying. Quite the contrary. One example is a student drone competition in the US, encouraging work on complex problems.The team at North Dakota State University is focusing on enabling a drone to rely only on sensors in the vehicle itself. This would be valuable for delivery drones that need to decide on what to do if they lose connection to a remote site.

Eventually, though, drone innovations will have to be built, and the final product has a very high chance of coming out of China.