The Future of Drones!

BusinessInsider is out with a new report on the future of drones. Some of the important takeaways:

• The global commercial drone market will take shape around applications in a handful of industries: agriculture, energy, utilities, mining, construction, real estate, news media, and film production. 

• Most growth in the drone industry is on the commercial/civilian side, as the shift away from the military market gains momentum. The market for commercial/civilian drones will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19% between 2015 and 2020, compared with 5% growth on the military side. 

• E-commerce and package delivery will not be an early focus of the drone industry. 

• Legacy drone manufacturers focused mostly on military clients do not have a natural advantage in the fast-evolving civilian drone market. 

• Proposed US regulation would effectively end the ban on commercial drone flights and would allow low-altitude flights of small drones within view of a ground-based pilot. The rules are unlikely to be finalized before early 2017. Some believe it will happen earlier. But we believe it most likely that widespread but heavily restricted commercial UAV flights will become routine sometime that year. 

• Technology barriers are at once a roadblock and a huge business opportunity.