The low-altitude economy "flapped its wings" and the trillion-yuan market opened

A series of unmanned aerial vehicles that can realize security and inspection operations have appeared in turn, and a number of hardware equipment that can be applied to low-altitude economy have been unveiled one after another...... Scenes that once appeared in science fiction movies are gradually "walking" into our daily lives.

Since the beginning of this year, intensive policy support has accelerated the transformation of low-altitude economy-related technologies. Previously, the Civil Aviation Administration of China issued the EH216-S unmanned manned aircraft system production license to EHang, which is considered to mark the official entry of the eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft) industry chain in mainland China into the mass production stage.

The logistics industry has also ushered in a new track of low-altitude economy. The scenario of "drone delivery" has become a reality in many cities, and new terms such as "rocket delivery" and "global hourly delivery" are becoming services that everyone can enjoy. Under the continuous promotion of policies, with the gradual maturity of the low-altitude economic industrial chain, its downstream application scenarios are expected to continue to expand, and the scale of trillion-yuan industries can be expected. At the same time, industrial chain enterprises are also constantly exploring to accelerate the smooth "take-off" of the low-altitude economy.

Favorable policies promote the acceleration of commercialization

Since the second half of 2023, the low-altitude economy has entered a period of intensive policy catalysis. The 2023 Central Economic Work Conference listed the low-altitude economy as one of the strategic emerging industries. This year's "Government Work Report" mentioned that it will actively build new growth engines such as biomanufacturing, commercial aerospace, and low-altitude economy.

"The 'low-altitude economy' was written into the "Government Work Report" for the first time, marking the rise of low-altitude economic development to the national level." Qiu Shiliang, co-director of the Zheshang Securities Research Institute and leader of the large manufacturing group, told the "Securities Daily" reporter.

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the Civil Aviation Administration of China and other four departments jointly issued the "General Aviation Equipment Innovation and Application Implementation Plan (2024-2030)" proposed that by 2030, general aviation equipment will be fully integrated into all fields of people's production and life, becoming a strong driving force for low-altitude economic growth and forming a trillion-yuan market scale.

The intensive release of favorable policies has accelerated the pace of commercialization of the low-altitude economy. On the whole, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is at the forefront of the exploration of low-altitude economy, and application scenarios such as air taxi and drone delivery are intensively appearing in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. At the same time, Beijing, Jiangxi, Jiangsu and other places have also shown their abilities in the field of low-altitude economy by virtue of their respective regional advantages.

Taking the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as an example, Guangzhou has taken the lead in developing the low-altitude economy, and has completed the "Implementation Plan for the Development of the Low-altitude Economy in Guangzhou" and the "Low-altitude Economic Development Plan of Guangzhou (2023-2035)", and issued the "Several Measures for Promoting the High-quality Development of the Low-altitude Economy in the Guangzhou Development District (Huangpu District)"; Shenzhen has issued the "Several Measures of Shenzhen to Support the High-quality Development of Low-altitude Economy", etc., focusing on enterprise cultivation, technological innovation, industrial application demonstration, infrastructure supply and other aspects of targeted funding.

Since the beginning of this year, the real picture of flying car eVTOL has frequently appeared in the sky of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other cities, and the manned "flying car" is no longer "on paper". Recently, the first low-altitude short-haul route from Shenzhen to Zhuhai was officially opened, and it only took 20 minutes to "fly" from Shenzhen to Zhuhai each way. Xpeng Huitian's Voyager X2, GAC Group's Gove, and EHang's EH216-S carried out vertical take-off demonstrations in the center of Guangzhou, and the Voyager X2 flew in the direction of the landmark Canton Tower through the autonomous driving mode, crossing the relevant landmark landscapes of Guangzhou.

Zhao Deli, President of Xiaopeng Huitian, said in an interview with the Securities Daily: "As a flying car research and development company, Xiaopeng Huitian is very concerned about the future application scenarios of products. ”

The drone delivery scenario is also accelerating in the Greater Bay Area. A few days ago, the reporter saw at the Taikoo Cang Wharf in Liwan District, Guangzhou City, that the drone transporting seafood and other ingredients had just arrived, and the staff took out the freshly sliced salmon from the Guangzhou Huangsha Aquatic Products Market from the cabin. Transported by drones, these fresh ingredients can be delivered to diners' tables as soon as possible.

"In recent years, we have been exploring the application of unmanned technology on the farm. At present, we have built a super cotton field in Xinjiang through unmanned technology, and a super farm in Huangpu, Guangzhou. It has been verified that unmanned technology can save a lot of comprehensive costs in production management and improve efficiency, such as the labor cost of super cotton fields can save 40% to 50%. Qian Shuting, senior manager of XAG Technology brand, told the "Securities Daily" reporter.

On May 15, the "Beijing Action Plan for Promoting the High-quality Development of Low-altitude Economic Industries (2024-2027) (Draft for Comments)" issued by Beijing proposed that the number of low-altitude economy-related enterprises will exceed 5,000 in three years, driving the city's economic growth to exceed 100 billion yuan.

In the Zhongguancun E-Valley (Yanqing) UAV Innovation Base, the reporter saw the finished helicopters and UAVs with different functions and forms, and also saw the UAV products that resemble kites and have recently been carried out from the laboratories of scientific research universities to explore commercial transformation.

According to Zhao Xin, CFO of Beijing Zhongguancun e-Valley, Beijing has gathered Tsinghua University, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing Institute of Technology and other universities and institutions with strong scientific research strength in the aerospace field, and the UAV innovation base has brought together many projects and enterprises incubated by these institutions. These innovative projects out of scientific research universities are expected to add new bright colors to the development of low-altitude economy in the future.

Not long ago, Jiangxi Province issued the "1269" Action Plan for the Modernization of Key Manufacturing Industry Chains in Jiangxi Province (2023-2026), which clearly supports the cultivation and development of low-altitude economic industrial clusters in Ganzhou, Jiujiang, Ji'an, Shangrao, etc.

The production base of Mingde New Materials is located in Zhongguancun E Valley (Ganzhou) Low-altitude Economic Industry Innovation Park in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province. Peng Xiaoyong, general manager of the company, told the Securities Daily: "Ganzhou is mountainous and can provide better flight test experiments for the linear logistics scene of drones." One step ahead in the test flight, the company's product commercialization is expected to be one step ahead. ”

"In the past two years, I have clearly felt that the policy is good for the development of the industry and even micro companies. The local government will help us promote our products at some military-civilian integration exhibitions, and will also help us win places to participate in some foreign exhibitions and encourage us to expand overseas markets. Peng Xiaoyong said.

As a pioneer in the early layout of the drone industry, Peng Xiaoyong witnessed the gradual expansion of drone application scenarios. "In recent years, drones have successively carried tasks such as road condition inspection, bridge inspection, power inspection, spring plowing and sowing, and the efficiency is more than five times that of manual operations. At present, we are also actively developing emergency rescue and disaster relief scenarios, and developing drone products that can carry emergency rescue kits. Peng Xiaoyong introduced.

The upstream and downstream of the industrial chain work together

According to the National Three-Dimensional Transportation Network Planning Outline, by 2035, the industrial scale of China's low-altitude economy will reach 6 trillion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 7.6%. According to data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, by the end of 2023, there were 1.267 million registered drones in China, a year-on-year increase of 32.2%; There are 19,000 enterprises operating unmanned aerial vehicles, and according to statistics, civilian unmanned aerial vehicles flew 23.11 million hours throughout the year, a year-on-year increase of 11.8%.

If the low-altitude economy wants to spread its wings and fly high, it needs more than just equipment to set sail. As an emerging industry, the low-altitude economy involves many fields such as OEMs, infrastructure, operators, training and maintenance, and only when the upstream and downstream links of the entire industrial chain form a closed loop, the low-altitude economy can really operate.

According to the Soochow Securities Research Institute, China's low-altitude economic industrial chain is divided into upstream, midstream and downstream. The upstream is the field of raw materials and core components, including R&D, raw materials and components; The midstream is the core part of the low-altitude economy, including aircraft manufacturing, low-altitude products and ground systems. The downstream is the industrial integration part, including flight approval, airspace filing, etc., mainly for the integration of low-altitude economy and various industries.

Specifically, the upstream field mainly refers to batteries, aviation materials, flight control systems, etc., and batteries are the main power devices of "flying cars". In the midstream field, the market mainly focuses on low-altitude products, and the more well-known brands include DJI, Xiaopeng Huitian, EHang, Zongheng Co., Ltd., etc., and aircraft and component manufacturing enterprises mainly include CITIC Haizhi, Hangfa Power, AVIC Motor, etc.

At present, the application scenarios of "low-altitude economy +" are abundant, and the downstream market is in the ascendant, and the application scenarios that have been commercialized include logistics, tourism, agriculture, fire protection, inspection, etc. Among them, "low-altitude economy + logistics" is currently one of the most widely used scenarios in commercial applications. Compared with traditional logistics and distribution methods, drone delivery has many advantages such as convenience and efficiency, saving labor costs, and reducing potential safety hazards, which greatly improves distribution efficiency. "Low-altitude economy + urban management" has become a new business model, and has shown a wide range of application prospects in the fields of emergency rescue, urban security, power inspection, land surveying and mapping, agriculture and forestry plant protection, and fire protection.

Manned eVTOLs in low-altitude products have been attracting attention and are expected to be the first to open up the demand for intercity transportation from 100 km to 300 km. Because the flight lead time of eVTOL is significantly lower than that of aircraft, it takes the shortest time to travel at a distance of 50 km to 400 km, and has advantages in terms of comfort, and is expected to replace the needs of buses, automobiles, high-speed railways and other needs in intercity transportation of 100 km to 300 km.

Qiu Shiliang said that he is optimistic about the commercial value of the low-altitude economy in the future air urban traffic scenario, especially the eVTOL electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, "pure electric power + automatic driving" can benchmark the autonomous driving of new energy vehicles, and may change the way human travel is done in the future.

"The low-altitude economy is a trillion-yuan track, but the more such a track, the less fast it will run." Song Xiaofei, deputy general manager of the financial market department of a state-owned financial investment institution, told the "Securities Daily" reporter that the complexity of airspace use, flight safety and other issues may affect the progress of low-altitude economic and industrial development.

From the current situation, the commercialization of eVTOL needs to solve obstacles such as obstacle avoidance, intelligent driving, route planning, and battery technology. The real industrialization of eVTOL requires further iteration in rapid monitoring systems, intelligent systems, route planning and design, and battery systems.

In Zhao Xin's view, the future development scale of low-altitude economic formats will far exceed that of new energy vehicles. At the current stage, further capital investment is required for both the improvement of technology and the creation of application scenarios.

"We expect to receive more financing support and financial services." Jin Yi, general manager of the same UAV in Jiangxi, told the "Securities Daily" reporter frankly that the low-altitude economy is gradually transitioning from the initial stage to the mature period, and both technology and application scenarios will be further matured. At the same time, as a technology-intensive and capital-intensive industry, the drone industry needs a large amount of capital investment to support R&D, production and marketing. "We hope to get more 'real money' support, and we also hope that financial institutions can increase investment in the drone industry to provide sufficient financial guarantee for the development of the industry."

With the continuous innovation of technology and the continuous expansion of application scenarios, the upstream and downstream industrial chain of low-altitude economy will continue to improve and develop. At the same time, the domestic accumulation of consumer electronics ecology, communication industry ecology, and Internet ecology has also brought a rich basic ecology to the development of the industrial chain of the low-altitude economy, forming an effective integration and traction.

Computing power network builds an "air highway"

The low-altitude economy must fly high, but also fly steadily and far. When flying cars and drones are taking off one after another, the invisible computing power network is also quietly laying out over our heads.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China said that with the implementation of a series of policy measures, the mainland's low-altitude flight service support system has basically taken shape. At present, the three major operators are shaping the network system of "heaven and earth integration" through high-tech such as "5G+" to escort the construction of air highways.

In the interview, the reporter learned that whether the construction of new infrastructure and low-altitude economic hardware facilities can "go to each other" was once a concern for many practitioners. Jin Yi expressed his anxiety about infrastructure to reporters, saying: "At present, drone technology has made great progress, but there is still room for improvement in flight stability, endurance, load capacity, communication transmission, etc." ”

"To promote the demand for high-density, high-frequency, high-complexity large-capacity integrated flight, we must take low-altitude intelligent networking as the core to carry out infrastructure construction and system reform, otherwise low-altitude new formats and new businesses are just 'castles in the air'." In an interview with the Securities Daily, the relevant person in charge of China Mobile said that it is urgent to establish a new low-altitude infrastructure support system based on safety, intelligence and reliability, and it is urgent to further improve the technology and capabilities of network, terminal, platform, security and computing power.

China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom and other communication operators are assuming the role of low-altitude intelligent network builders. According to public information, by the end of 2023, the total number of mobile communication base stations in the country will reach 11.62 million, of which 3.377 million are 5G base stations, and an information service infrastructure system covering the whole region has been formed. The rapid development of 5G and 5G-A communication networks not only accelerates the deep integration of unmanned aerial systems and other industries, but also provides new capabilities for global supervision and efficient services for the development of low-altitude economy.

According to China Mobile's 2023 annual report, two space-ground integrated low-orbit test satellites, "China Mobile 01 Satellite" and "'Star Core' Verification Satellite", were successfully launched into orbit. "This marks a key step for mobile networks to integrate space and earth, enabling future low-altitude services." The relevant person in charge of China Mobile said.

At present, China Mobile has built the world's largest high-quality 5G network and 5G+ Beidou high-precision positioning network, as well as the largest single computing center in China. These infrastructures can support low-altitude economic communication access, positioning and navigation, computing power AI resources, and integrate big data capabilities with infrastructure capabilities to strongly support business needs such as airspace opening, supervision and management, risk assessment, and security control.

China Telecom also has a big move in the field of low-altitude economy. Recently, China Telecom registered and established China Telecom Unmanned Technology (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "China Telecom Unmanned Technology"). From the perspective of specific business, the business scope of China Telecom Unmanned Technology includes intelligent unmanned aerial vehicle sales, 5G communication technology services, artificial intelligence industry application system integration services and other businesses.

China Unicom is also actively deploying the low-altitude economy. China Unicom has explored the evaluation of trainee training flight trajectories through the mining of low-altitude perception data by 5G-A synaesthesia base stations in Shenzhen Shahe Industrial Ecological Park and Nanjing Civil Unmanned Aviation Test Zone, respectively, improving the efficiency of education and training and incubating new business formats.

"To achieve end-to-end and door-to-door scenarios, it is necessary to establish a high-precision full-space and full-time service network, equipped with an intelligent and autonomous supervision and dispatching system, to ensure that the relevant industries are mature, and the economy and performance of equipment, networks, and chip modules are reliable." China Mobile said that in this process, low-altitude economic entities such as drones and aircraft will be able to achieve faster and more accurate communication and data transmission; The low-altitude transportation system will achieve more intelligent operation and management, real-time monitoring and intelligent scheduling of low-altitude economic activities, and gradually improve the operation efficiency and management level. The regulatory system will be more standardized, and the regulatory authorities can monitor and control low-altitude aircraft in real time, maintain low-latency two-way communication, and realize the visible, calling, and management of drones.

The low-altitude economy provides a wide range of application scenarios for the development of computing power networks, and the computing power network brings unprecedented intelligence and efficiency to the low-altitude economy. The integration and mutual promotion of the two will create a new era of intelligence, efficiency, safety and convenience.

In addition, with the development of low-altitude economic industry, high-rise buildings and roof aprons in the city may become new traffic nodes, forming a three-dimensional transportation network with ground transportation, which is expected to further improve the efficiency of urban transportation; At the same time, compared with traditional modes of transportation, traditional sea, land and air transportation modes are limited by geography, climate and other factors, and low-altitude transportation is expected to break these restrictions, promote the interconnection between cities, provide faster and more convenient connections for international trade, business activities, tourism, etc., and accelerate the flow of resources, information, talents and other elements.

Through the empowerment of informatization and digital management technology, the low-altitude economy will realize comprehensive three-dimensional transportation and low-altitude integrated flight represented by smart air travel, and become an important engine to promote future economic and social development.

Editor/Fan Hongwei