From ancient times to the present, young people who are keen on "heaven" are endless, kites, hot air balloons, airships, airplanes, gliders... Today's drones, any one of them can easily evoke human adventure genes. Behind a drone is likely to be wrapped in a variety of meanings, there is a sense of military mystery, industrial sense of technology, consumption of cool sense.
More than a decade ago, drones were still out of reach of ordinary people, and at that time, military drones accounted for almost the entire world, and the share of civilian drones was less than 10%. In the past two years, the situation has obviously reversed, whether it is Wang Feng using a drone to send an 8-carat marriage proposal diamond ring to the international chapter, or a group of aerial photography and brilliant light shows in major cities, which is the best proof that civilian drones are taking off.
In almost ten years, domestic civilian UAVs have grown rapidly, and some data show that by 2023, the size of China's UAV market will reach 96.8 billion yuan, of which military UAVs are about 35 billion yuan and civilian UAVs are nearly 62 billion yuan. In other words, in the 100-billion-level market, civilian drones will account for more than 60%.
The report of the 2022 National Civil Aviation Work Conference mentioned that in 2021, there will be 12,700 UAV-related enterprises, about 830,000 real-name registered drones, and the flight time will reach the order of tens of millions of hours. In terms of capital, in 2021, the financing amount of the national UAV industry will exceed 10 billion yuan, and there will be more than 20 UAV companies with financing of more than 10 million yuan, of which more than 10 enterprises will have raised more than 100 million yuan.
The sky roared, and countless lights were waiting for civilian drones to take off.
Can't get around the barrier of consumption?
It is undeniable that the excitement of igniting the outside world for drones is often in a flash, very early on, the major technology companies like to show their drone strength in the air, and even slowly evolved into a competition of open and dark fighting, from the number, pattern to the formation, there are skills everywhere.
In 2016, Intel set a drone performance record with 100 meteor drones flying in formation in the air. In 2018, Intel once again set a New Guinness World Record for "the largest number of drones released at the same time" at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, with a total of 1218 aircraft.
In the same year, EHang performed in formation with 1374 drones on the Xi'an City Wall, breaking the Guinness World Record of "the most drones flying at the same time". Companies seem to be particularly real at drone shows, and just three months later, Intel once again released 2018 drones simultaneously in Folsom, California.
This record was quickly broken by Russia, on September 3, 2020, st. Petersburg staged a high-altitude performance of 2200 drones, followed by technology companies around the world to break the drone record comparable to primary school students fighting, the domestic desert, through thousands of machines, high innovation also appeared, the scores were 3051, 3281, 5200, respectively.
This battle-like competition also invisibly perfectly interprets the embarrassment of civilian drones. Entertainment consumption is the most difficult pain point for civilian drones to talk about at present, especially compared with industry, Frost & Sullivan's data shows that the market size of mainland consumer drones and industrial drones in 2019 was 28.333 billion yuan and 15.179 billion yuan, respectively.
Although the entire civilian drone market, the industrial grade only accounts for less than 35%, it seems that the consumer market is a good one, but in fact, the latter is a lot of chicken feathers.
If you explore deeper, the consumer field with the market price, audience are continuing to mature, the threshold of industrial chain support, hardware costs is getting lower and lower, today, the registered name directly contains the word drone 474 companies, the past three years established for 439, accounting for 93%.
On the one hand, since 2015, the total financing of private drone companies, China ranked first with 262 million US dollars, and in terms of market share, Guangda DJI accounted for more than 70% of the global civilian UAV market share.
On the other hand, young people who are addicted to model aircraft have never stopped, and the aerial photography that was once popular in major cities has repeatedly nourished the cool flight culture, and the consumption of drones has only increased, but entrepreneurs large and small have entered the game, and soon the market has shown a tired state.
Regardless of the frequent incidents of the head brand of blowers, in the 2019 315 consumer rights survey, drones are impressively listed. More critically, the industry's current product protection system is far from keeping up with the upstream expansion, Ai media consulting data shows that the overall rights protection rate of drone consumers is low, of which the user who is unsuccessful in rights protection is as high as 48.3%.
In contrast, although the industrial drone is still in the pre-outbreak accumulation stage, the productivity is destined to empower unlimited imagination space in the field, such as the Heilongjiang UAV sowing operation has exceeded 60 million mu. What's more, unlike the consumer market, industrial drones focus more on the flight technology and industry applications of aircraft, which means that many entrepreneurs who want to enter the market can only hope for the lack of a lot of funds and technical support.
It can be said that civilian drones are also consumed and defeated. At present, many companies are trying to bypass the consumer market, after all, there is DJI in this field, even if you want to continue to be trapped, the day of the head is extremely slim.
Take Yihang, which once rushed into the consumer market, for example. EHang has gradually shifted its focus to future urban air traffic, with air mobility solutions accounting for only 4.7% of EHang's total revenue in 2018, and a year later, this proportion reached 72.6%. But civilian drones want to bypass consumer entertainment is not easy, it is bound to require more courage and opportunity.
And courage is available, opportunities are hard to find.
After becoming a toy
From the niche toys of model aircraft fans to the tech punk signs sought after by young people now, drones have been used for almost a decade and have finally emerged in trend consumption. Today, short videos are on the rise, and drones frequently appear at weddings, videos, banquets, graduation seasons and other major events.
When civilian drones are gradually taking off, many voices mock sharp weapons into toys, can not escape the circle of entertainment consumption, is indeed a haze that cannot be ignored above the civil drone market.
And when there are more and more young people on the rise, affordable drones are just right. According to a survey, high-end drones above $300 account for 84% of total sales, but only 40% of total sales, and drones between $50-100 account for 42% of total drone sales and 1/4 of total sales. Many young people began to work part-time as "pilots" in the process of entertaining themselves.
Previously, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Bureau of Statistics jointly released 13 new occupations, of which drone operators were among them. It is reported that at present, a full-time pilot has an income of at least 7 or 8 thousand a month.
Between 2018 and 2020, the domestic UAV effective pilot license continued to grow, in 2019, China's effective drone pilot license was 67218, an increase of 22645 over 2018, an increase of 50.8%; in 2020, China's effective drone pilot license was 88994, an increase of 21776 over 2019, an increase of 32.4%.
Whether young people's heavenly business is good or not, it is impossible to rush to conclusions, but it is interesting that there are many industries that grow wildly depending on the huge civilian drone market.
Drone training institutions are a prime example. According to AOPA data, from 2014 to 2018, the number of formal UAV pilot training institutions in the mainland increased from 18 to 337, of which the UAV training institutions in North China, Central South China, East China, Northeast China and Southwest China were more than 10 times that of 5 years ago, and even once attracted capital inflows.
It is reported that individuals to participate in the flight qualification examination alone, need to be affiliated with training institutions, in the name of training institutions to participate in the qualification examination, according to incomplete statistics, there are at least 7 cases of UAV training institutions on the market financing cases, but most of these companies are pan-UAV business, simply engaged in training only one.
There is also a drone light show, frankly speaking, the concept of environmental protection is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and the drone light show is strong in the sky to form a new atmosphere prop. Perhaps because the hardware can't complete the quality in a short period of time, most drone-related companies are looking for a second curve, such as the aerial media business that crosses thousands of machines accounts for more than half of the total revenue all year round.
From the perspective of the outlet, there is no shortage of overnight wealth, according to the survey, some UAV light show quotations can be as high as five figures per flight, can save many UAV companies in the water and fire. However, no matter how strong the gold digging ability of the light show, the industry will eventually return to the field, not to mention that the airspace flight rights of the core landmarks of the city are also a tricky thing.
Yihang also used the light show to transfuse his own blood, and the performance project that refreshed the Guinness World Record above the Xi'an City Wall that year, with a total transaction amount of up to 10.5 million yuan, but the tide passed, and eventually continued to run to the production end of the application drone. Because they know very well that in order to break the game, the sword blade must not just point to the sky.
Increasingly functional requirements?
Some media have linked the development process of domestic civilian drones with mobile phones, chips, batteries, 5G, intelligence and other industries. This multi-faceted technology market is more like a highlight refraction of the entire Chinese manufacturing history, and under the trend of comprehensive intelligence, the functional demand for drones has also improved.
It is undeniable that capital and entrepreneurs get together to consume drones, in addition to the simplicity of technology entry, cost is also the key. In particular, aerial drones, most of the parts are similar to existing smartphones, and their finished parts are more than 80%. A little lower, a single part above $10 is limited to batteries and cameras.
But this does not mean that the demand for functions of consumer-grade drones is not high. Flying culture is becoming more and more intense among young people, and the social attributes and media communication attributes of drones are also rising, in addition to technical requirements, more important portability, safety, and vulnerability control are also becoming increasingly prominent in the consumption process.
Ai Media Consulting has a survey shows that product quality is the primary factor for consumers to consider when buying smart hardware, accounting for 70.4%, ranking third in the factor is product quality, accounting for 45.7%. As for the R & D team at the industrial end, there are fewer than 10% of the domestic enterprises that really master the core technology of industrial drones.
Therefore, whether it is a flight enthusiast or a more complex industrial application scenario, in short, the civil UAV industry has to enter the next era of technological upgrading. In addition, from the perspective of commercial value, functional demand has also soared, according to relevant statistics, the commercial use of drones is as high as more than 2,000 kinds. Hardware, software, algorithms, systems... The huge consumer market and scene expansion all have an impact on the existing flight safety system in the industry.
Domestic UAV research and development is not too late, according to the data of China Intellectual Property Network, as early as 1986, the first patent application was submitted in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles. From 2010 to 2014, the average annual growth rate of patent applications was more than 30%, and in 2014, the number of applications reached 1636.
Such a grand enthusiasm for research and development, for a long time, the various technologies of civilian unmanned aerial vehicles, such as fixed-point hover technology, tracking and shooting technology, obstacle avoidance technology, and wireless image transmission technology, have continued to progress, including basic flight speed and endurance.
But specifically, the research and development efficiency of UAVs in the past two years is not high.
Taking Jifei, which is second only to DJI, as an example, from 2018 to the first half of 2021, the R&D investment of Jifei Technology was 48.8482 million yuan, 69.4743 million yuan, 97.3584 million yuan and 81.3071 million yuan, accounting for 15.18%, 19.49%, 18.36% and 17.35% of the operating income, respectively.
This proportion is much higher than the basic standard of high-tech enterprises on the R & D expense rate, but the research and development that Jifei does not skimp on does not seem to be fully returned to the product. Jifei's star product P80 is the "king" of the bomber all year round, and even the official data admits that the P80 failure rate is not low, and even a warranty sheet shows that a P80 has been repaired 11 times.
Why is there a situation where R&D is not proportional to the product?
In fact, in the final analysis, it is still a small amount of money. From 2018 to 2020, Jifei's net profit continued to be negative, -6.894 million yuan, -39.6055 million yuan and -59.8323 million yuan, respectively, and the amount of loss gradually expanded. Similarly, EHang Intelligent's net profit in 2021 is -314 million yuan.
It is worth noting that before, the United States once tried to suppress DJI, since 2012, North America is the world's largest share of drone transactions, accounting for more than 60%, Silicon Valley has begun to support local drone companies. Next, the global drone market is destined to start a functional revolution.
Optimistically, the domestic UAV industry has an unattainable advantage in technological change: that is, the electronic components supply chain and a huge supplier system, the carbon fiber materials, special plastics, lithium batteries, and magnetic materials required by the UAV are also complete, no matter what the result is, at least the rear reserves are sufficient.
The Tao is always reasonable, and has used the name Crooked Dao, the Internet and the new media in the science and technology circle. The WeChat public account of the same name: Dao always has a reason (daotmt). This article is an original article, and any form of reproduction without retaining the author's relevant information is not retained.