Drones have become an increasingly popular activity over the past many years. Drone enthusiasts are not only the young ones but even the adults have become interested in this hobby. This is because professional drones have also made their way into the markets. This makes it a huge industry in the US as well as other parts of the world. Let’s take a look at how big the drone industry is in terms of numbers.
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Direct Economic Impact in the UAV Industry in the USA
The USA is the biggest market for drones. As a matter of fact, most high-tech drone manufacturers emerge from the USA. There is mass-scale research and development on government-level as well. For this reason, the USA has become a country which has a major direct economic impact from the drone industry.
The graph is a trend-graph that shows the change between 2015 and 2025 in terms of economic impact to the USA from the drone industry. As of 2015, the USA only had $1.2 billion of economic earnings from drones. In 2020, this number reached about 3.5 times the original value and turned out to be $4 billion. It is expected that by 2025, the economic impact is going to cross the $5 billion mark. An overall positive trend with consistent growth shows that the drone industry is becoming a very popular one in the US.
Annual Sales of UAVs in the US
The first graph showed how big the overall drone industry is within the USA. This included imports and exports as well. However, this second graph particularly shows how much are the annual sales of UAVs or drones within the US alone. In 2015, this number was only 40,000 per annum. With the consistent and rapid growth in this number, it crossed the 100,000 mark in 2018. By 2020, this number will increase to 125,000. The overall trend shows that drones and UAVs are becoming an increasingly popular hobby all over the US.
Drone Sales (Drone Market by Sector)
This graph is yet another important one that highlights where drone technology is being most demanded. Surprisingly, this is not exactly the producer and consumer market. Drones are high in demand by the military in the first place which accounts for about 70% of the sales. The military applications include spying, drone fighters, and other mass developments as well. Indirectly, it also indicates that future warfare is going to be somehow linked with drones and their high-tech features.
Next in this list includes commercial and consumer markets both of which account for 13% and 17% respectively. We can conclude that the consumer market for drones is a bit low but with the right level of promotion and advertisement, it can increase exponentially over the next few years.