Consumer grade rc drones VS industrial grade, which has more "money" in the drone industry

Now there are a lot of manpower supporting consumer rc drones, the reason is that the market size and shipments are both large enough. However, I believe that there is no reasonable standard for the market calculation of consumer rc drones.

The rise of UVA drones in the past two years has attracted the attention of a large number of investors. In particular, U.S. regulators have begun to allow limited commercial operations ofr rc drones, allowing global capital to accelerate investment in the field of civilian rc drones.

Global UAV Investment and Financing Scale.

From 2014Q3 to 2016Q2, the investment and financing scale of the global UAV market reached 5,868.9 billion US dollars, of which the investment and financing scale in 2015 accounted for 70% of the statistical interval.

Global UAV Investment and Financing Stage and Proportion.

Among them, domestic rc drone companies have invested 35 times and foreign companies 17 times. The investment and financing rounds are mainly concentrated in angel rounds and A rounds.

Consumer grade rc drone VS industrial grade, who has more "money prospects"?

The design concept of unmanned aerial vehicle was first applied in the field of military industry. Due to the strong technical secrecy and industry monopoly nature of military equipment, it is difficult for private enterprises and capital to gain access.

With the implementation and advancement of the military-civilian integration strategy worldwide, the application of UAV technology in the civilian field has made great progress in recent years.

According to the purpose and function, civilian rc drones can be divided into two types:

Consumer rc drones: Consumer rc drones refer to rc drones for personal or family use, generally with a shooting function.

Industrial-grade rc drones: Industrial-grade rc drones refer to rc drones for enterprises and government public services, with different functions according to industry needs.

Now there are a lot of manpower supporting consumer rc drones, the reason is that the market size and shipping is large enough. However, author believe that there is no reasonable standard for the market calculation of consumer drones.

And is there really so much demand for drones in the consumer market? Let’s look at the application channels of civilian rc drones:

We can see that the current consumer rc drones are mainly used by aerial photography players. This is a niche player. You don’t know who will buy it, who will buy it again, and whether it can support some reports. A huge market of billions? It is difficult to find a convincing basis for the budget of the consumer-grade market size of tens of billions and the sales plan of annual sales of N million units.

Consumer rc drones have a low barrier to entry, and you can even assemble one at home.

Since 2015, international chip giants have entered the UAV market one after another. The addition of chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm, Intel, Samsung, and Nvidia has solved the previous problems of large flight control components, low computing performance, and high energy consumption.

Nowadays, for only a few hundred yuan, rc drone manufacturers can obtain flight control technology from open source flight control platforms such as APM and PIXhawk, and even purchase a complete set of solutions.

The innovation of these underlying technologies shortens the production cycle. Even, from the power system (battery, motor, ESC, etc.), camera system (camera, gimbal, etc.), to the software system, you can place an order on Taobao with one click.

This has led to many UAV manufacturers gathering in the middle reaches of the UAV industry chain - doing OEM business. Consumer-level rc drone companies are deeply involved in the quagmire of competing prices and sales capabilities, and because the market itself has little room for imagination and fierce competition, it has become a red sea.

In contrast, industrial drones have a strong demand for rigidity, and the subdivisions can be divided into very fine areas: intelligent transportation, fire rescue, police security, power patrol, wind power inspection, railway inspection, bridge inspection, photovoltaic inspection, border patrol, Water monitoring...

Transportation, security, electric power, photovoltaics, border defense, etc. have many "to-be-developed" segments, which are very suitable for start-up companies to enter, and each segment can have a market space of 1 billion to 5 billion, which is suitable for start-up companies to complete from The development of "0-1" first monopolizes a small subdivided field, and then extends to other directions.

At present, there are three types of mainstream UAV teams: the first is the model aircraft enthusiasts team, which focuses on consumer entertainment; the second is the sales team, which involves consumer & industrial levels; the third is the military, Technical team with civil aviation background, focusing on industrial level.

In the field of industrial drones, there is a polarization of concentration. For example, in agricultural application scenarios, DJI has produced its own agricultural drones, but due to the low threshold, the products of many "small companies" are also applicable. You can use very good products, but you can also use non-good products. At the same time, the industry concentration is low and the market is too fragmented, making operations and markets more important.

This has led various companies to enter the "operational competition" mode. If a company has strong operational capabilities, even if its production capabilities are average, it can slowly grow in this market. But from the perspective of investors, it is difficult to see "operational capabilities" from a company's team and development status, which is not conducive to making judgments.

Investors pay more attention to industries with high concentration, such as oil and electric power. In Chinese oil field, there are nothing more than "three barrels of oil". These three companies together can supply a rc drone market of about 5 billion. If there is a start-up company that can enter this field and meet some of the requirements at the same time, it can Standing firm, there is a high growth and development space in the future.

In this highly concentrated industry, there is a clear process for the application of rc drones:

Due to the reasons in the industry, industrial rc drones started later than consumer rc drones.

In industries with relatively high concentration, the first team to start is the consumer rc drone team. This type of team is good at discovering market demand, can quickly launch products, and can obtain large sales in a short time. But when an industry starts to apply it in a large-scale and systematic manner, it will be found that there are four problems that are difficult to solve in industrial drones.

In China, in the small UAV market, we are at the same starting line as foreign countries. Even due to the active capital market in our country in the past two years, many start-ups have enough resources to use and can compete with international giants. Competition in the field of small UAV industrial applications.

In the field of unmanned aerial vehicles, the aircraft model industry has developed for more than ten years. There is a complete supply chain for components such as racks, motors, and ESCs in aircraft models. Even the core flight control system has foreign APM, Pixhawk, CC3D, etc. Open source flight control is available, so it is very simple to manufacture a "model aircraft level" drone.

For drone companies, the more important technical capabilities are core airframe design capabilities, flight control capabilities, intelligent capabilities, and so on.

The future competition in the UAV market must be a competition for technology, capital and resources. UAV start-up companies must do a good job in corporate positioning, because the UAV market will definitely be segmented in the future. Focus on a certain field to do in-depth and thorough work, and become the number one in this field, and then expand related fields to gradually become an industry giant.